Numerous neurological, psychological, and transfer studies confirmed the role of learning music in cognitive development and education. However, exploring the long-term impacts of early musical abilities on academic achievement has gained relatively little attention thus far. In a seven-year longitudinal study, we examined the predictive role of…

The present study investigated the co-occurrence of word reading and spelling difficulties for Chinese first language (L1) and English second language (L2) and the role of morphological awareness in word reading and spelling ability across two languages. A total of 110 Hong Kong Chinese-speaking students in Grade 7, including 55 adolescents with…

This study rank ordered the contributive importance of several predictors of listening comprehension for third, seventh, and tenth graders. Principal components analyses revealed that a three-factor solution with fluency, reasoning, and working memory components provided the best fit across grade levels. Dominance analyses indicated that fluency…

This study demonstrates the utility of applying a causal indicator modeling framework to investigate important predictors of reading comprehension in third, seventh, and tenth grade students. The results indicated that a 4-factor multiple indicator multiple indicator cause (MIMIC) model of reading comprehension provided adequate fit at each grade…

We present the results of an empirical test of the hypothesis that transfer of orthographic processing to reading occurs when the scripts under acquisition are written with the same unit (specifically, the same alphabet). We tested 97 Spanish-English bilingual children in Grades 4 and 7. We measured mother's education level, verbal and nonverbal…

Prior research has shown that quantity of schooling affects the development of intelligence in childhood and adolescence. However, it is still debated whether other aspects of schooling--such as ability tracking or, more generally, school quality--can also influence intelligence. In this study, the authors analyzed intelligence gains in academic-…

A group of seventh- and eighth-grade Italian students with low achievement (LA) in learning English as a foreign language (FL) was selected and compared to a group with high achievement (HA) in FL learning. The two groups were matched for age and nonverbal intelligence. Two experiments were conducted to examine the participants' verbal and…