Purpose: Little is known about the relationship between discourse comprehension and production in traumatic brain injury (TBI), especially for spoken language. This study examined to what extent narrative discourse comprehension accounts for narrative discourse production outcomes (story grammar, story completeness). A secondary aim was to…

This article reports on a collaborative research project involving faculty in writing studies, communication disorders, and applied linguistics that sought to empirically describe the reading skills of students (N = 910) in freshman composition classes at one college and two universities in the northeast United States. The research team developed…

Purpose: The goal of this study was to identify some potential key cognitive and communicative processes underlying narrative discourse ability following traumatic brain injury (TBI). Specifically, this study (a) investigated the contribution of working memory (WM) and inferencing to narrative discourse comprehension and production; (b) tested key…

Promoting Adolescents' Comprehension of Text (PACT) is a text- and discourse-based set of instructional practices that engage students with disciplinary texts as a means of building content knowledge and improving reading comprehension. PACT)s "efficacy" has been the subject of extensive previous trials. The purpose of this study was to…

The purpose of this study was to understand the impact, implementation and costs associated with a one-semester elective lab course in 9th grade, Accelerating Literacy for Adolescents (ALFA) Lab, which seeks to improve students' reading achievement, particularly for those from economically disadvantaged communities. This study used three cohorts…

Developmental language disorder (DLD) and developmental dyslexia (DD) are two prevalent subtypes of Specific Learning Disabilities (SLDs; "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" [5th ed.; DSM-5]). Yet, little information is available regarding the distinct challenges faced by adults with DLD and/or DD in college. The…

We systematically assessed the relationships between growth of four components of verbal ability--Information, Similarities, Vocabulary, and Comprehension subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale-Revised--and longitudinal growth from Grades 1 to 9 of the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery Passage Comprehension subtest while controlling…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not decreased articulation of speech played a role in the ability of an individual with Down syndrome or Fragile X syndrome to signal noncomprehension and whether the two groups differed in their levels of articulation of speech and noncomprehension signaling ability. The research was conducted…

This study examined reading issues associated with a standardized science test. Grade 11 students in Connecticut were shown released science test items and asked about the reading issues associated with the items. Findings suggested that students varied in their understanding of the nature of the items and in their ability to read for detail. The…

This study examines the academic abilities of children and adolescents who were once diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, but who no longer meet diagnostic criteria for this disorder. These individuals have achieved social and language skills within the average range for their ages, receive little or no school support, and are referred to…

Examining deficits in the development of adolescent literacy, this article explores conceptions of literacy not as a "simple" exercise that merely requires layperson understandings of words, but rather, as research shows, as a deeper action that requires disciplinary knowledge and standing. Vygotsky's distinction between tool users vs.…

In the fall of 2009, the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) initiated a series of research programs designed to support the high school reform program, "Excellence for All," based on more than 20 years of research on the school reform programs of the countries with the most successful education programs worldwide. A…

The struggles of students in the United States to comprehend non-fiction science text are well documented. Middle school students, in particular, have minimal instruction in comprehending nonfiction and flounder on assessments. This article describes the development process of the Readorium software, an interactive web-based program being…

"Thinking Reader" is a software program for students in Grades 5-8 that incorporates elements commonly identified in policy reports as being key components of effective adolescent literacy instruction. This evaluation of the impact of "Thinking Reader" use by Grade 6 students focused on two confirmatory research questions about…

Our nation's educational system has scored many extraordinary successes in raising the level of reading and writing skills in younger children. Yet the pace of literacy improvement in our schools has not kept up with the accelerating demands of the global knowledge economy. In state after state, the testing data mandated by No Child Left Behind…