This study examined how executive functions and cognitive-linguistic skills relate to online lexical processing during sentence reading as a function of word frequency, word length, and concreteness in 171 first- and second-grade children. Executive functions (interference, verbal working memory, and fluency) and linguistic abilities (vocabulary, Rapid Automatized Naming, and phonological awareness) were assessed and linked to two oculomotor indices of word processing, namely First Fixation Duration (FFD) and Total Fixation Duration (TFD), computed for six lexical areas of interest, using descriptive analyses and regression models. Children processed high-frequency words more efficiently than low-frequency words in both FFD and TFD. Early efficiency was associated with fluency and phonological awareness (PA), whereas later efficiency was linked to interference control. Although long words descriptively elicited longer fixations, neither age nor cognitive and linguistic skills significantly predicted differences in FFD or TFD, suggesting that word length was not a reliable predictor of lexical processing efficiency in this task. No consistent advantage was found for concrete over abstract words. Abstract words imposed greater demands during the initial stages of processing (FFD), but these differences diminished in TFD and were not explained by cognitive or linguistic skills. Taken together, these findings provide preliminary evidence that lexical processing efficiency in emergent readers may depend more strongly on word familiarity and on cognitive and linguistic skills than on word length or concreteness, highlighting the interaction between stimulus properties and individual competencies in early reading. However, the findings should be interpreted with caution, as they are task-specific and based on limited item sampling, with only one item representing each lexical category.
Shared cognitive–linguistic skills support reading and spelling, yet they may dissociate into heterogeneous literacy profiles. This study examined whether Chinese students learning English as a second language (ESL) with poor reading (PR), poor spelling (PS), combined word-reading and spelling difficulties (English learning difficulties; ELD), and typical development (TD) exhibited distinct literacy outcomes and cognitive–linguistic profiles, and which skills uniquely predicted subgroup membership. Participants were 190 Grade 2–3 Hong Kong Chinese students who were classified into predefined literacy profiles based on grade-normed performance on standardized English word reading and word spelling measures. Students completed assessments of vocabulary knowledge, phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge, rapid naming, morphological awareness, working memory, and IQ. Multivariate analyses of covariance showed that the predefined literacy profiles were associated with overlapping but differentially expressed cognitive-linguistic patterns. Hierarchical multinomial logistic regression analysis showed that vocabulary knowledge and phonological awareness consistently differentiated all difficulty groups from TD peers. In contrast, orthographic knowledge uniquely predicted PR and ELD but not isolated PS. Rapid naming and morphological awareness did not show unique contributions. These findings are consistent with literacy difficulties reflecting shared but differentially weighted cognitive-linguistic constraints, supporting a multiple-deficit perspective and highlighting vocabulary knowledge and phonological awareness as important targets for assessment and intervention in ESL learners.
مهارت‌های شناختی-زبانی مشترک از خواندن و املا حمایت می‌کنند، اما ممکن است به پروفایل‌های سواد ناهمگن تقسیم شوند. این پژوهش بررسی کرد که آیا دانش‌آموزان چینی که زبان انگلیسی را به عنوان زبان دوم (ESL) می‌آموزند و دارای مشکلات خواندن (PR)، مشکلات املا (PS)، مشکلات ترکیبی خواندن و املا (مشکلات یادگیری زبان انگلیسی؛ ELD) و رشد طبیعی (TD) هستند، نتایج سواد و پروفایل‌های شناختی-زبانی متمایزی نشان می‌دهند و کدام مهارت‌ها به طور منحصر به فرد عضویت در زیرگروه‌ها را پیش‌بینی می‌کنند. شرکت‌کنندگان شامل ۱۹۰ دانش‌آموز چینی پایه دوم و سوم از هنگ‌کنگ بودند که بر اساس عملکرد نرمال‌شده با توجه به پایه تحصیلی در آزمون‌های استاندارد خواندن واژه‌های انگلیسی و املا به پروفایل‌های سواد از پیش تعیین‌شده طبقه‌بندی شدند. دانش‌آموزان ارزیابی‌هایی از دانش واژگان، آگاهی واجی، دانش املایی، نام‌گذاری سریع، آگاهی صرفی، حافظه کاری و بهره هوشی را تکمیل کردند. تحلیل کوواریانس چندمتغیره نشان داد که پروفایل‌های سواد از پیش تعیین‌شده با الگوهای شناختی-زبانی همپوشان اما متفاوت همراه هستند. تحلیل رگرسیون لجستیک چندجمله‌ای سلسله‌مراتبی نشان داد که دانش واژگان و آگاهی واجی به طور مداوم همه گروه‌های دارای مشکل را از همتایان TD متمایز می‌کند. در مقابل، دانش املایی فقط PR و ELD را به طور منحصر به فرد پیش‌بینی کرد و نه PS منفرد را. نام‌گذاری سریع و آگاهی صرفی نقش منحصر به فردی نشان ندادند. این یافته‌ها با این دیدگاه که مشکلات سواد بازتاب محدودیت‌های شناختی-زبانی مشترک اما با وزن‌دهی متفاوت هستند، سازگار است و دیدگاه چندنقصی را حمایت می‌کند و دانش واژگان و آگاهی واجی را به عنوان اهداف مهم برای ارزیابی و مداخله در زبان‌آموزان ESL برجسته می‌سازد.
