Reading Comprehension and Perception of Sequentially Organized Patterns: Intramodal and Cross-Modal Comparisons

Abstract

The ability to make sameness or difference judgments of pairs of Morse code-like patterns was measured when stimuli were presented intramodally or crossmodally. Visual, auditory, and tactual modalities were compared. Performance was compared in three groups of children — (1) a group poor in Reading Comprehension (group PR), grade levels 3 to 6; (2) a group matched with group PR on Vocabulary, sex, and age but at grade level on Comprehension; and (3) a group approximately two years younger than Group PR but matched with it on Comprehension scores. The younger group showed poorest overall performance on the experimental task. Overall, as a main effect, accuracy in the intramodal conditions was better than in the cross-modal conditions. When the first pattern of a pair was auditory, performance was better than when it was visual or tactual, while tactual performance was better than visual. Any comparison, however, in which the first pattern was auditory discriminated between the group poor in Reading Comprehension and the group of normal readers matched with it on Vocabulary. A deficit in auditory memory rather than cross-modal perception appears to be a factor in poor Reading Comprehension.