Backward-masking and syllable–rate thresholds have only minor associations with reading achievement, compared to several cognitive and linguistic measures

Abstract

Rate thresholds for syllable–sequences [the Indiana Test of Auditory Memory and Processing Rate—ITAMPR, Watson and Eddins, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 105, 1236 (1999)] and backward-masking thresholds, were obtained from 220 children. These measures were only weakly associated with reading achievement and with speech recognition. Other tests, however, accounted for roughly half of the variance in teacher-assigned reading grades. Results of 36 sensory, perceptual processing, linguistic, and cognitive tests and subtests administered to the population from which these children were obtained (approximately 98% of the 472 entering first-graders in Benton County Indiana from 1995 to 1997), were well-described by four factors. These factors and the systematic variance in reading achievement associated with them were: Factor 1 (31%): reading-related skills (phonological awareness, letter- and word-identification); Factor 2 (12%): visual cognition (visual perceptual abilities, spatial perception, visual memory); Factor 3 (9%): verbal cognition (language development, vocabulary, verbal concepts); and Factor 4 (1%): speech processing (the ability to understand speech, measured under difficult listening conditions). These data are inconsistent with the hypothesis that temporal processing deficits are causally related to reading impairments. [Work supported by NIH/NIDCD, Indiana Univ., and the Benton County (Indiana) School Corporation.]