title: Profiles of children with specific reading comprehension difficulties.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Children with fluent and accurate word reading in the presence of poor text comprehension are impaired on a wide range of reading-related tasks.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This study investigated the consistency of skill impairment in a sample of poor comprehenders to identify any fundamental skill weakness that (i) might be associated with poor text comprehension, and (ii) might lead to depressed reading development. An additional aim was to determine whether reading comprehension difficulties are associated with more general educational difficulties.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty-three poor comprehenders and 23 good comprehenders with age-appropriate word reading accuracy were assessed when aged 8 years. Concurrent reading and language performance and reading, educational attainment and reasoning skills 3 years later are reported.
  
  
  METHODS
  The following skills were assessed when aged 8 years: word reading, text comprehension, vocabulary, syntax, cognitive ability, working memory, comprehension subskills. Listening comprehension, SAT scores and reasoning scores at 11 years are also reported.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There was no evidence for any fundamental skill weaknesses in the population of poor comprehenders at Time 1. However, poor vocabulary skills led to impaired growth in word reading ability and poor general cognitive ability led to impaired growth in comprehension. Poor comprehenders obtained lower SAT scores than did the good comprehenders at 11 years.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings indicate that a single underlying source of poor comprehension is unlikely. Poor comprehenders are at risk of generally poor educational attainment, although weak verbal or cognitive skills appear to affect the reading development of poor comprehenders in different ways.
authors.affiliation: University of Essex, UK. k.cain@lancs.ac.uk
authors.forename: Kate
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Cain
authors.forename: Jane
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Oakhill
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007807:Language Tests; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D014825:Vocabulary