Physical activity (PA) benefits children's cognition, in particular executive functions (EF). Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Reading Difficulties (RD) and co-occurring ADHD/RD have low levels of PA and difficulties with EF. This study evaluated a PA programme to determine recruitment, attrition, feasibility (e.g.…

In this study, we validated the "ReadFree tool", a computerised battery of 12 visual and auditory tasks developed to identify poor readers also in minority-language children (MLC). We tested the task-specific discriminant power on 142 Italian-monolingual participants (8-13 years old) divided into monolingual poor readers (N = 37) and…

This study centered on emergent bilingual (EB) students with specific reading comprehension deficits (S-RCD), that is, with poor reading comprehension despite solid word identification skills. The participants were 209 students in Grades 2 to 4, including both EBs and English monolinguals (EMs) with and without S-RCD. Mean comparisons indicated…

This study centered on Dual Language Learners (DLLs) with specific reading comprehension deficits (S-RCD), that is, with poor reading comprehension despite solid word identification skills. The participants were 209 students in Grades 2-4, including both DLLs and English Monolinguals (EMs) with and without S-RCD. Mean comparisons indicated that…

Specific reading comprehension deficit (SRCD) affects up to 10 % of all children. SRCD is distinct from dyslexia (DYS) in that individuals with SRCD show poor comprehension despite adequate decoding skills. Despite its prevalence and considerable behavioral research, there is not yet a unified cognitive profile of SRCD. While its neuroanatomical…

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)…

It is unknown whether children with conduct problems (CP) and poor reading (PR) skills exhibit more profound executive function impairments than children with CP only and whether such impairments are explained by coexisting PR. Executive functions were compared in four groups of 7- to 8-year-old children: 26 CP only, 35 PR only, 27 CP-PR, and 31…

Reading comprehension is a complex interactional process whereby the accumulated meaning of sounds, words, and sentences is integrated to form a meaningful representation of text. It is well established that many individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have reading comprehension difficulties, but less is understood about the underlying…

The current study investigated the cognitive deficit profiles among individuals with mathematics difficulties (MD) and potential moderators and mechanism for these profiles. Seventy-five cognitive profiling studies on MD were included, representing a total of 13,001 individuals and 126 independent samples. Results showed that compared with…

Working memory, inhibition and naming speed was assessed in 22 children with mathematical learning disorders (MD), 17 children with a reading learning disorder (RD), and 45 children without any learning problems between 8 and 12 years old. All subjects with learning disorders performed poorly on working memory tasks, providing evidence that they…

Tasks in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are unusually varied because they target phenomena occurring in diverse domains and call upon a wide range of abilities to perform them. The fact that STEM tasks cover such a broad spectrum of abilities makes these fields uncharacteristically inclusive: Individuals with disabilities…