Reading comprehension and aging: does an age-related difference necessarily mean impairment?
OBJECTIVE
This research investigated reading comprehension in groups of younger-old (55-69 years) and older-old (70-90 years) Italian adults to determine age-related differences and explore their extent. The second aim of our research was to investigate the nature of individual age-related differences and their relation to working memory and metacognition.


METHODS
In Experiment 1,250 participants read two passages, a narrative and an expository text, and answered a series of multiple-choice inferential questions. In Experiment 2, three groups: younger-old good and poor comprehenders and older-old poor comprehenders were compared for working memory and metacognitive tasks.


RESULTS
Although older-old adults had some difficulty compared with younger-old, a comparison with normative control scores (comprehension level achieved at the end of 8th grade compulsory education) showed that their reading comprehension of a narrative text was adequate, demonstrating basic comprehension skills for everyday life. Younger-old good comprehenders had higher working memory and metacognitive scores than younger-old poor comprehenders, consistent with results obtained in the literature with younger participants. Older-old adults had poorer working memory than younger-old poor comprehenders, although they did not differ in metacognitive performance.


CONCLUSIONS
Results show that age differences influence the relationship between reading comprehension and memory and metacognition.
De Beni
Rossana
R
Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
Palladino
Paola
P
Borella
Erika
E
Lo Presti
Stefano
S
D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004411:Dyslexia, Acquired / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011932:Reading