Free accessResearch articleFirst published online 2007-6
The Contribution of Graphophonological-Semantic Flexibility to Reading Comprehension in College Students: Implications for a Less Simple View of Reading
Reading is complex and requires that individuals process many types of information concurrently. Contemporary perspectives on cognitive development focus on the ability to process cognitively complex stimuli, indicate cognitive development is domain-specific, and suggest cognitive development occurs across the lifespan. Yet little work has examined reading-specific cognitive developmental variation and its contribution to skilled reading. This study investigated the contribution of a measure of reading-specific cognitive development, graphophonological-semantic flexibility (the ability to process concurrently phonological and semantic information associated with print), to reading comprehension in college students. Graphophonological-semantic flexibility made a unique contribution to adults' reading comprehension over phonological and semantic processing assessed independently, even when general cognitive ability was controlled. Implications for the simple view of reading are discussed.
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