Children aged 8 through 11 ( N � 250) were given a word-by-word sentence task in both the visual and auditory modes. The sentences included an object relative clause, a subject relative clause, or a conjoined verb phrase. Each sentence was followed by a true–false question, testing the subject of either the first or second verb. Participants were also given two memory span measures: digit span and reading span. High digit span children slowed down more at the transition from the main to the relative clause than did the low digit span children. The findings suggest the presence of a U-shaped learning pattern for on-line processing of restrictive relative clauses. Off-line accuracy scores showed different patterns for good comprehenders and poor comprehenders. Poor comprehenders answered the second verb questions at levels that were consistently below chance. Their answers were based on an incorrect local attachment strategy that treated the second noun as the subject of the second verb. For example, they often answered yes to the question “The girl chases the policeman” after the object relative sentence “The boy that the girl sees chases the policeman. ” Interestingly, low memory span poor comprehenders used the local attachment strategy less consistently than high memory span poor comprehenders, and all poor comprehenders used this strategy less consistently for harder than for easier sentences.

To account for the large demands of working memory during text comprehension and expert problem solving it is proposed that the traditional models of working memory involving temporary storage have to be extended to include a long-term working-memory portion. According to the proposed theoretical framework cognitive processes are viewed as a sequence of stable states representing end products of processing. In skilled activities these end products are stored in long-term memory and kept directly accessible by retrieval cues in short-term memory as proposed by skilled memory theory. These

This research studied deaf students ' performance on memory span and component reading tasks that incorporated processes involved in higher level comprehension. The instruments developed in the study provide the basis for the measurement of functional working memory capacity, vocabulary knowledge, domain-relevant knowledge, and inference abilities. Multiple regression analysis was used to construct models that show the contributions of the independent assessments to reading comprehension ability. Overall, results suggest that working memory operates as a general executive system, as indicated by significant correlations between subjects' performance on reading and nonreading tasks. Limitations in vocabulary knowledge continue to pose problems in reading for deaf individuals. General or procedural knowledge also plays a part in reading comprehension processes. Contemporary information-processing models of memory acknowledge a variety of cognitive mechanisms/ operations necessary for the recognition and transformation of incoming mental stimuli, as well as processes used in the storage, retrieval, and maintenance of information (for an overview, refer to Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). Within the human information-processing system, the limited-capacity working memory is generally considered to be the bottleneck through which infor-This research was conducted in the course of an agreement between the

lex interaction among frequency of the replacement cognitive word in established word frequency counts, the level of meaning as determined by the R. E. Frank and W. S. Hall (1991) conceptual difficulty hierarchy and whether the cognitive word was a cognate of think or know. Cognitive words, such as think and know, are a category within the internal state lexicon. Most internal state words are verbs with the as the subject (e.g., "John recalls the answer" and "Jill considers her friends viewpoint "). In particular, cognitive words may be central to accessing, monitoring, and transforming internal states (e.g., Hall, Scholnick, Hughes, 1987). Cognitive words enable people to make fine-grained distinctions among their cognitive states (Corson, 1985). For this reason, we argue that cognitive words may be essentially involved in the development of skilled reading comprehension. Cognitive words can provi

The authors compared fifth-, seventh -, and tenth-graders, and college undergraduates cognitive word knowledge of the cognates of think and know within a theoret- ical framework focused on hierarchical levels of meaning. Cognitive words form a category within the internal state lexicon and may be central to accessing, monitoring, and transforming our internal states, all of which seem to be processes critical to reading comprehension. Cognitive word knowledge was positively correlated with achievement scores. The correlations with cognitive word knowledge were higher for Verbal (vocabulary and reading comprehension) than Quantitative achievement scores, and cognitive word knowledge increased with age. However, the order of acquisition of cognitive words depended on a complex interaction between the frequency of the cognitive word in established word frequency counts, the level of meaning as determined by the conceptual hierarchy, and whether the cognitive word was a cognate of thin...