Previous research has argued that children who experience difficulties in reading comprehension are less skilled in either speed of verbal processing or speed of decoding. Little explanatory power or research has been given to variables from developmental memory research such as the child's ability to draw inferences, to elaborate or “go beyond the information given,” or to the child's sensitivity to text-structure variations. Eighty-three fourth- and sixth-graders composed of groups of good and poor comprehenders were presented with a battery of semantic processing and speed of processing tasks. The results of the analyses yield support for several specific semantic processing deficits for poor comprehenders and for a generalized speed of processing deficiency. Implications for remedial interventions are discussed.
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