Self-regulation forms the rudiments for children's academic achievement and socialization. Although one's executive control and verbal skills are needed in both of the core aspects for academic performance: processing to regulate one's own learning and behavior, young students' cognitive capacity for that is still immature influencing the…

Background: Previous research showed a significant association between mathematics and working memory (WM). However, evidence regarding the different effects of verbal and visuospatial WM on mathematical abilities was very limited. Aims: The current research aims to explore the relationship between verbal and visuospatial WM with mathematical…

In this article we present a new method for estimating children's total vocabulary size based on a language corpus in German. We drew a virtual sample of different lexicon sizes from a corpus and let the virtual sample "take" a vocabulary test by comparing whether the items were included in the virtual lexicons or not. This enabled us to…

The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine whether young learners of varying reading and spelling performance, identified in Grade 2, can be distinguished retrospectively from kindergarten, based on their growth profiles in cognitive (planning, attention, working memory--WM) and linguistic (phonological--PA and naming speed--RAN)…

Identifying change at the individual level is an important goal for researchers, educators, and clinicians. We present a set of statistical procedures for identifying individuals who depart from a normative change. Using Latent Change Scores models (LCS), we illustrate how the Individual Likelihood computed from a statistical model for change…

The internal/external (I/E) frame of reference model (Marsh, "Am Educ Res J" 23:129-149, 1986) conceptualizes students' self-concepts as being formed by dimensional as well as social comparison processes. In the present study, the I/E model was tested and extended in a sample of elementary school children. Core academic skills of…

A critical skill in emergent writing is the developing ability to take the perspective of different readers; however, the precursors of this skill have not yet been identified. In this longitudinal study, 105 children (90 after attrition) were tested at 3 time points: pre-kindergarten (3-4 years old, n = 105), kindergarten (5 years old, n = 97),…

The purpose of this study was to empirically examine the dimensionality of language ability for young children (4-8 years) from prekindergarten to third grade (n = 915), theorizing that measures of vocabulary and grammar ability will represent a unitary trait across these ages, and to determine whether discourse skills represent an additional…

A study was conducted to measure possible sex differences in phonological awareness and reading ability among children in early primary school. A subset of the "Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills" (DIBELS) was administered to 140 children in kindergarten through to second grade (mean ages five to seven years). Independent…

Despite numerous studies, the link between verbal working memory (WM) and calculation abilities remains poorly understood. The present longitudinal study focuses specifically on the role of serial order retention capacities, based on recent findings suggesting a link between ordinal processing in verbal WM and numerical processing tasks. Children…

Across multiple schools and sites, the impact of grade-at-intervention was evaluated for children at risk or meeting criteria for reading disabilities. A multiple-component reading intervention with demonstrated efficacy was offered to small groups of children in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade. In a quasi-experimental design, 172 children received the…

Few studies have examined the influence of environmental factors on children's executive functioning (EF) performance. The present study examined the effects of a punitive vs. non-punitive school environment on West African children's EF skills. Tasks included a "cool" (relatively non-affective) and "hot" (relatively…

During the school years, psychological test norms may be indexed by age or by grade. A number of studies have shown that using age-based norms appears to produce biases associated with grade assignment. Cahan and Cohen [Child Dev. 60 (1989) 1239-1249] showed that the effect of one grade was over twice the effect of 1 year of age for most verbal…

The main hypotheses addressed in the research were (1) whether imprecision in the phonological representations of lexical items underlies the impaired expressive naming abilities of disabled readers, and (2) whether weak verbal memory might mediate the relationship between naming and reading skills. From samples of 93 first graders and 67 fourth…