Children's comprehension monitoring of multiple situational dimensions of a narrative

Do Struggling Adult Readers Monitor Their Reading? Understanding the Role of Online and Offline Comprehension Monitoring Processes During Reading

Comprehension monitoring is a meta-cognitive skill that is defined as the ability to self-evaluate one's comprehension of text. Although it is known that struggling adult readers are poor at monitoring their comprehension, additional research is needed to understand the mechanisms underlying comprehension monitoring and their role in reading comprehension in this population. This study used a comprehension monitoring task with struggling adult readers, which included online eye movements (reread and regression path durations) and an offline verbal protocol (oral explanations of key information). We examined whether eye movements predicted accuracy on the passages' reading comprehension questions, a norm-referenced reading assessment, and an offline verbal protocol after controlling for age and traditional component skills (i.e., decoding, oral language, working memory). Regression path duration uniquely predicted accuracy on the questions; however, decoding and oral vocabulary were the most salient predictors of the norm-referenced reading comprehension measure. Regression path duration also predicted the offline verbal protocol, such that those who exhibited longer regression path duration were also better at explaining key information. These results contribute to the literature regarding struggling adults' reading component skills, eye movement behaviors involved in processing connected text, and future considerations in assessing comprehension monitoring.

Inference making skill in children with visual impairments

There is a scarcity of research examining the reading comprehension skills of partially-sighted children despite evidence indicating that they lag behind their typically-sighted (TS) peers in reading comprehension ability. We compare the performance of children with visual impairments (VIs) with that of chronological-age matched TS counterparts on a task that requires them to make emotional, temporal and spatial inferences from short texts. The findings indicate that children with VIs exhibit a specific deficit in drawing inferences about spatial information in narratives as opposed to emotional or temporal information. The results are discussed in relation to the role of visual acuity in imagery skills and how this affects the construction of a mental model of a text.

Cultural adaptation of the Test of Narrative Language (TNL) into Brazilian Portuguese

PURPOSE

To accomplish the translation and cultural adaptation of the Test of Narrative Language (TNL) into Brazilian Portuguese.

METHODS

The TNL is a formal instrument which assesses narrative comprehension and oral narration of children between the ages of 5-0 and 11-11 (years-months). The TNL translation and adaptation process had the following steps: (1) translation into the target language; (2) summary of the translated versions; (3) back-translation; (4) checking of the conceptual, semantics and cultural equivalence process and (5) pilot study (56 children within the test age range and from both genders).

RESULTS

The adapted version maintained the same structure as the original version: number of tasks (both, three comprehension and oral narration), narrative formats (no picture, sequenced pictures and single picture) and scoring system. There were no adjustments to the pictures. The "McDonald's Story" was replaced by the "Snack Bar History" to meet the semantic and experiential equivalence of the target population. The other stories had semantic and grammatical adjustments. Statistically significant difference was found when comparing the raw score (comprehension, narration and total) of age groups from the adapted version.

CONCLUSION

Adjustments were required to meet the equivalence between the original and the translated versions. The adapted version showed it has the potential to identify differences in oral narratives of children in the age range provided by the test. Measurement equivalence for validation and test standardization are in progress and will be able to supplement the study outcomes.