A Four Year Follow‐up Study of Low Socioeconomic Status, Latin American Children with Reading Difficulties

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a follow‐up study of reading difficulties among Spanish‐speaking Latin American children of low socioeconomic background (SES) over four school years. The research started with a group of 93 children with reading difficulties (RD) by 2nd and 3rd grade teachers in four schools and a control group of 63 children without reading difficulties (ND), belonging to the same schools. Both groups were equivalent in age, grade, gender and SES. All children were tested on reading decoding and comprehension, reading and writing pseudo‐words, verbal abilities, visual perception, phonological processing, and the WISC‐R. Neither SES nor IQ accounted significantly for the reading difficulties in the RD group. The most predictive variables of the final reading level in the RD group were phonological processing, verbal abilities, and the initial level of decoding. After four years, 17% of the initial RD children had reached an average level of reading, but 11% of this group remained with severe reading difficulties and may be considered as dyslexic children. The RD children who became average readers were not significantly different from the control group in verbal abilities, nor in phonological processing. Nevertheless, they were significantly different in terms of IQ scores. The neuropsychological characteristics of the children with severe reading difficulties appear similar to those found in children with dyslexia in more developed countries.