comprehension in children with hyperlexia by michele …
Post on 16-Oct-2021
3 Views
Preview:
TRANSCRIPT
C O M P R E H E N S I O N I N C H I L D R E N W I T H H Y P E R L E X I A
by
M I C H E L E L . L E S T E R
B . A . , The University of Manitoba, 1997
A THESIS S U B M I T T E D I N P A R T I A L F U L F I L L M E N T
OF T H E R E Q U I R E M E N T S F O R T H E D E G R E E O F
M A S T E R O F A R T S
In
T H E F A C U L T Y OF E D U C A T I O N
(Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology and Special Education)
We accept this thesis as conforming
to the required standard.
T H E U N I V E R S I T Y OF B R I T I S H C O L U M B I A
June 10, 2003
© Michele L . Lester, 2003
In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced
degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it
freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive
copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my
department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or
publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written
permission.
The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada
D E - 6 ( 2 / 8 8 )
Comprehension in Hyperlexia i i
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the reading comprehension problems
associated with hyperlexia in young children. Two 8-year-old children with hyperlexia
and two children with mild intellectual delays (MID), matched in terms of age, grade, and
1Q, were evaluated using various decoding and reading comprehension tasks. Children
with hyperlexia had excellent decoding abilities, far above what would be expected for
their cognitive level, but did not comprehend passages as well as students without
hyperlexia who had similar cognitive ability. Prior knowledge aided the reading
comprehension for the M I D participants, where as high interest strongly aided the
comprehension for the hyperlexia participants. Students with hyperlexia demonstrated
less comprehension monitoring than the M I D students. Results are discussed with regards
to implications for teaching children with hyperlexia and M I D .
Comprehension in Hyperlexia i i i
T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
Abstract
Table of Contents ".
List o f Tables....
Acknowledgements
C H A P T E R I Overview and Summary
Hyperlexia
Comprehension in Children with Hyperlexia
Comprehension in Skilled Readers
Overview & Specific Research Question 1
C H A P T E R II Literature Review 1
Hyperlexia
Comprehension in Hyperlexia
Cognition and Memory
Long-term Memory and Schema
Metacognition and Strategy Use
Motivation and Interest
Summary :
C H A P T E R III Method ...
Phase 1 Measures
Phase 2 Measures
Phase 1 Procedure
Phase 2 Procedure
Comprehension in Hyperlexia iv
C H A P T E R IV Results : 64
Identification and Screening 64
Participants 65
Phase 1 Results 67
Phase 2 Results 75
Summary 86
C H A P T E R V Conclusion/Discussion 88
Limitations 92
Future Directions 94
Conclusions 94
References 96
Appendix A (Informed Consent Form) 105
Appendix B (Error Detection #1 :Hyperlexia) 107
Appendix C (Error Detection #1 :MID) : 109
Appendix D (Error Detection #2:Hyperlexia) 111
Appendix E (Error Detection #2:MID) 113
Appendix F (Metacognitive Rating Scale).... 115
Appendix G (Self-Correction Task) 116
Appendix H (High Prior Knowledge Task:Hyperlexia) 118
Appendix I (High Interest PassagerHyperlexia) 120
Comprehension in Hyperlexia v
List o f Tables
Table 1
Congruent Responses on Rating Scale Questions 58
Table 2
Personal Information for Participants 65
Table 3
Results for Phase 1: Cognitive Abi l i ty , Wording Reading Measures, & Comprehension .. 69
Table 4
Data from Phase 2 Comprehension & Metacognitive Awareness Measures: Percent of
Correct Answers 78
Comprehension in Hyperlexia v i
Acknowedgements
I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Nancy Perry, for her consistent advice
and support. Without her knowledge and patience I would not have been capable of
completing this thesis. I would also like to thank my thesis committee members, Pat
Mirenda and Linda Siegel. Both of these women brought so much knowledge and insight
to this project and I am so grateful to them for agreeing to be a part o f this thesis. I also
owe so much thanks to my parents, Phi l and Irene Lester, for without their continuous
support, both emotionally and financially, completing this thesis would not have been
possible. Finally, I thank my husband for loving me and standing by me, and God for
giving me the knowledge and stamina to complete such an arduous task.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 1
C H A P T E R I
Comprehension in Children with Hyperlexia
Past research about children with hyperlexia has focused primarily on their exceptional
decoding abilities compared with their cognitive impairments (Cobrinik, 1982; Mehegan &
Dreifuss, 1972; Richman & Kitchell , 1981; Silberberg & Silberberg, 1967, 1968-69, 1971; Siegel,
1984). However, recent literature has begun to focus more on the comprehension impairment that
accompanies the advanced decoding skills within this population (Aaron, Frantz, & Manges, 1990;
Goldberg & Rothermel, 1984; Snowling & Frith, 1986; Worthy & Invernizzi, 1993). Some
research has shown that hyperlexic children have appropriate single-word comprehension
(Cobrinik, 1982; Healy et al., 1982; Richman & Kitchel l , 1981; Siegel, 1984); however, there are
still debates regarding the precise nature of their comprehension deficits (Aram, 1997).
Specifically, research on comprehension o f children with hyperlexia has not resulted in consistent
findings with regard to how much of a comprehension deficit there is and how much of it is
syntactic or semantic (Aram, 1997). Additionally, only one study has briefly examined the role o f
prior knowledge in children with hyperlexia and none to date have looked particularly at the
metacognitive abilities in these children. Hence, these issues remain to be examined.
Reading is a complex interactive process that involves attention, memory, metacognition,
motivation, and strategic action. Reading is not simply decoding. Similarly, comprehending
individual words does not by itself guarantee the understanding of a sentence or paragraph.
C
Comprehension of text requires that readers attend to meaning, and activate and apply background
knowledge and experience or schema to text information to understand (Anderson, 1978;
Rumelhart & Ortony, 1977). However, prior knowledge is insufficient. Comprehension also
requires that readers use metacognition (awareness of one's own thinking) and strategies for
reading and learning to understand text (Borkowski & Buchel, 1983; Borkowski & Kurtz, 1986).
Metacognition, or thinking about how one learns, has been shown to be an important asset to
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 2
comprehension o f text (Baker & Brown, 1984). Similarly, motivation plays an important role in
reading comprehension. Research has shown that readers need both skill and wi l l in order to be
successful comprehenders (Paris, Lipson, & Wixon , 1983).
M y research wi l l investigate comprehension in children with hyperlexia. Specifically,
what accounts for the poor comprehension in these children? Do these children use or have access
to prior knowledge or schema about various concepts and do they make use o f metacognitive
strategies to help them to make sense of what they are reading? In the sections that follow, the
concepts of hyperlexia, schema, metacognition, motivation and strategy use wi l l be introduced and
defined. The general characteristics of successful reading comprehension wi l l also be described.
Finally, an overview of the research I conducted and the specific research questions I addressed
wi l l be provided.
Hyperlexia
Definitions of Hyperlexia
The term hyperlexia was first used by Silberberg and Silberberg (1967) to describe a group
of 20 children they had observed whose word recognition skills were at least 2 years above their
expected achievement level. In a subsequent study (Silberberg & Silberberg, 1968-69) these
authors further examined these case studies and arbitrarily classified their subjects as hyperlexic i f
their observed reading level was above the expected word-recognition level by 1.5 years for grades
1 and 2, and 2.0 years for grades 3 and up.
In another in-depth study, Healy et al. (1982) investigated hyperlexia in 12 children with
early and superior reading and word recognition skills. These children were observed and tested
with regard to IQ, language, cognition, reading and behaviors. Additionally, their families were
interviewed with regard to their developmental history as well as their family history. Through this
intense testing and observation, the authors elaborated the definition of hyperlexia proposed by
Silberberg and Silberberg (1967,1971). Healy et al. (1982) define hyperlexia as a syndrome that is
characterized by: (a) spontaneous and intense early interest in letters and words prior to the age of
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 3
5 years, coupled with, (b) significantly disordered language and cognitive development, and (c)
word recognition (decoding) well advanced over other cognitive and linguistic abilities.
Similarly, Siegel (1984) in a longitudinal case study of a hyperlexic girl, defined
hyperlexia as a condition consisting of advanced word recognition skills in spite of both language
and cognitive disorders. However, she added that expressive language in these children is usually
very poor, and noted that hyperlexic children typically have IQ scores that range in the moderate to
severely retarded range on standardized intelligence tests and exhibit disturbances in behavior,
such as social withdrawal, rocking, or self-stimulatory behaviors.
Operational Definition of Hyperlexia. For purposes of this research paper, hyperlexia w i l l
be defined using Healy et al.'s (1982) criteria: (a) early and spontaneous word recognition prior to
the age of 5 years, (b) accompanied by both language and cognitive delays, and (c) word
recognition far advanced in comparison with other cognitive and linguistic functions.
Comprehension in Children with Hyperlexia
Although several studies have examined comprehension in hyperlexic children (Aram et
al., 1984; Healy et al., 1982; Patti & Lupinetti, 1992; Siegel, 1984; Snowling & Frith, 1986;
Temple, 1990), none have offered definitive conclusions about the nature of their comprehension
deficits. Many of the studies have had different conclusions about how much of a comprehension
deficit these children actually have. Some studies conclude that these children have very severe
comprehension deficits, over and above what would be expected given their linguistic and
cognitive delays (Healy et al., 1982; Siegel, 1984), while others suggest that these children's
comprehension is commensurate with their IQ (Snowling & Frith, 1986; Temple, 1990; Welsh et
al., 1987).
Healy et al. (1982) examined the reading comprehension of 12 hyperlexic children.
Various tests were used to examine both sentence and paragraph comprehension. On the Stanford
Diagnostic Reading Test (SDRT) (Karlsen, Madden, & Gardner, 1976), the children scored well
below the mean score for their age on comprehension. Even though the decoding ability of these
children was, on average, very accelerated, they could not retell or summarize a story. Most of the
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 4
children gave responses that were not even related to the text's meaning. Even on single-word
comprehension tasks the children scored very poorly. The definitions given by these children on
even the simplest concrete nouns, such as "door", were usually associative, and often described a
personal sensorimotor experience, e.g., "I close" (Healy et al., 1982).
Worthy and Invernizzi (1995) examined the comprehension deficit in a 14-year-old girl
with hyperlexia. Despite the fact that this participant decoded words above a grade 12 level, her
comprehension skills were severely deficient. Her single-word comprehension was found to be at
a grade 2.6 level, while her passage comprehension sat slightly higher at a grade 3.1 level.
However, higher passage comprehension compared to single word comprehension is not the norm
for these children. Additionally, Worthy and Invernizzi (1995) found that on various reading
inventories the girl was completely unable to retell anything about the story nor answer any of the
questions asked. Overall, her comprehension level was considered to be below the primer level
(Worthy and Invernizzi, 1995). In a similar study, Welsh et al. (1987) examined single-word
comprehension skills in five boys with hyperlexia. These authors found unexpectedly precocious
single-word reading in all the boys and precocious single-word reading comprehension (Welsh et
al., 1987).
There are still many unanswered questions regarding the reading comprehension of
children with hyperlexia. For example, what accounts for the poor comprehension beyond the
word level? A study that specifically investigates comprehension deficits in these children and
looks at various aspects o f their comprehension is needed.
Comprehension in Skilled Readers
What does it take to be a skilled reader? Much research in the area of reading
comprehension tells us that skilled readers take a strategic approach to reading (Paris & Jacobs,
1984; Paris & Oka, 1986; Paris, Lipson, & Wixon , 1983; Wong & Wong, 1986). These children
engage in a variety of processes that enhance their reading comprehension. These processes or
reading strategies occur before, during and after reading and include such things as goal setting,
inference-making, identifying the main theme, summarizing, predicting, monitoring and rereading
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 5
(Paris, Wasik, & Turner, 1991; Pressley et al., 1994).
Readers who preview their text prior to reading it have increased comprehension of both
implicit and explicit information (Graves & Cook, 1980). Previewing of text can be done in
various ways, such as skimming text, looking at titles or looking at the pictures (Paris et al., 1991).
Previewing activates relevant prior knowledge. Lipson (1983) found that children's prior
knowledge about religious customs aided their comprehension when reading a passage on taking
communion in church.
During the reading process there are many tactics a reader can use to increase their
comprehension, such as identifying the main topics and making inferences (Paris et al., 1991).
Another tactic skilled readers use is called text inspection which includes skills, such as rereading.
Garner and Reis (1981) examined rereading of text in eighth grade skilled and less-skilled readers
and found that skilled readers used rereading where less-skilled readers did not. Similarly, Baker
(1979) suggested that reading for meaning involves the use of comprehension monitoring which
involves keeping track of the success of one's comprehension. This is a type o f metacognitive
activity that ensures that reading for meaning continues as a smooth process and that remedial
action (i.e., self-correction) is taken whenever necessary (Baker, 1979). A study by Paris and
Myers (1981) investigated cognitive monitoring in both good and poor readers. Grade 4 children
were divided into two groups depending on their reading abilities. The children read passages and
answered questions about them. The investigators observed and recorded various aspects of
comprehension monitoring. The authors found that poor readers engaged in significantly less
comprehension monitoring and that this was correlated with poor comprehension and recall scores
as compared with the good readers (Paris & Myers, 1981).
After the reading process, skilled readers take time to review and reflect about the text.
Brown and Day (1983) found that high-school students summarized information across
paragraphs, restating it in their own words, whereas fifth and seventh-grade students tended to
report information verbatim from the text. The authors found that the older subjects could more
frequently order text by topics or ideas whereas the younger students followed the sequence of the,
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 6
text (Brown & Day, 1983).
Skilled readers are active processors of textual information. It is possible that children with
hyperlexia are poor comprehenders because they do not actively process text but instead simply
decode the words without checking their comprehension. However, there is not enough
information on the metacognitive abilities in these children to make any conclusive statements.
This study wi l l address these important issues with a view to providing some answers to these
questions.
Cognition and Memory
Cognition and learning are both active and constructive processes. Learners must actively
pursue knowledge through various cognitive and metacognitive processes in order to be
successful. Learning requires attention to the task as well as encoding, storing and retrieving
information in long-term memory. Readers comprehend text by combining new and prior
knowledge as well as using cognitive and metacognitive strategies to ensure the text is understood.
Skilled readers possess both declarative knowledge (knowing what) and procedural knowledge
(knowing how) about reading, as well as executive control processes that allow them to regulate
their own reading processes. Children who are skilled comprehenders bring together various
components of memory and cognition, such as attention, schema, metacognition, strategy use, and
motivation and interest in order to make sense of text.
Attention
In order to read, one must first attend to the task. Perception and attention play a large role
in what information is selected for processing and storage. Attention, therefore, plays an important
role in reading and learning. Reading involves a combination of automatic processes and control
processes. Automatic processes occur effortlessly and make minimal demands on attention and
working memory (e.g., driving to an experienced driver). However, many reading tasks require the
allocation of conscious attention and working memory. More complex activities, such as reading
difficult text and recognizing a breakdown in comprehension, elaborating on text meaning, or
bridging inferences to integrate meaning are the types of tasks that require attention.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 7
Long-term memory — Schema
Memory is an active process that involves encoding, storing and retrieving information.
Information must first be attended to before it is processed into long-term memory. Additionally,
the learner must use strategies to actively encode the information before it can be stored in
long-term memory. Once information is stored, it can be used to aid learning of new information.
Schema theory is one way o f describing how knowledge is stored in long-term memory. It
assumes that all knowledge is packaged into units called schemata. For example, a schema for a
chair is: an item with four legs, a back, and a seat that is used for sitting on and often made out of
wood. Everyone has schema for a variety of generalized objects, and events (Nelson, 1986).
Schema have at least four major functions: (a) they categorize your experiences, (b) they
help us remember, (c) they aid in comprehension, and (d) they aid in problem-solving (Smith,
1989). Reading comprehension occurs when a reader is able to connect information in the text with
knowledge/schema stored in long-term memory.
How Schemata Aid in Comprehension. Many studies have shown that prior knowledge or
schemata influence a reader's comprehension (Afflerbach, 1990; Anderson, 1996; Langer, 1984;
Pearson, Hansen, & Gordon, 1971; Rumelhart, 1977; Smith, 1989). Garner (1987) claims that for
text comprehension to occur, schemata (prior knowledge) must be activated to aid in processing
any new text information. Old information in memory acts as an anchor for new information in
text (Ausubel, 1963). The old information, once activated, assists the processing of the new
information and this leads to successful comprehension. Rumelhart (1980) has proposed three
ways in which the reading process might fail: (a) by not having appropriate schemata, (b) by not
being able to activate the appropriate schemata, and (c) activating schemata that is not appropriate.
A study by Pearson, Hansen, and Gordon (1979) investigated schema in second grade
students using passages about spiders. The authors presented the class of students with eight
pretest questions to determine their background knowledge of spiders. The children were then
placed into two groups based on their prior knowledge, weak and strong schemata about spiders.
The participants then read a passage about spiders and answered several.wh- questions that
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 8
assessed both explicit and implicit knowledge about spiders. The authors found that students with
well-developed schemata were better at answering both types of questions as compared to the
weak schema group (Pearson et al., 1979). These results were interpreted as supporting schema
theory. Taylor (1979) also tested theories on schema and text comprehension. In her study, grade 3
and grade 5 good and poor readers were tested in regard to prior knowledge and comprehension of
text. Both groups of children were given passages on a familiar topic (bird nest building) and an
unfamiliar topic (bee dancing) and asked to read and recall the content of both passages. The
results showed that participants recalled less from the unfamiliar text topic than from the familiar
topic (Taylor, 1979).
The results of these investigations support schema theory. The poor comprehension of
children with hyperlexia may be due in part to a lack of schema for topics read or difficulties
activating relevant schema.
Operational Definition of Schema. For the purpose of this investigation, schema wi l l be
defined as relevant prior knowledge or topic familiarity that readers apply to comprehend text.
Metacognition and Strategic Action
Metacognition is knowledge about cognitive phenomena or thinking about one's own
thought processes (Flavell, 1979). It consists of two important components: (a) awareness of one's
thoughts, and (b) regulation of one's thoughts. Flavell and Wellman (1977) identified three
variables that make up metacognition: (a) knowledge about self (i.e., my learning strengths and
weaknesses), (b) knowledge about tasks, and (c) knowledge about strategies. Metacognitive
knowledge serves to coordinate and direct thinking and behavior, while the executive functions
regulate thoughts, such as planning, monitoring, testing and revising of one's thinking.
Learning strategies exist on both a cognitive and metacognitive level. Cognitive strategies
for learning include such things as verbal rehearsal or the use of mnemonics where as
metacognitive strategies would include activities such as setting goals for learning and then
monitoring progress towards those goals. Reading strategies that promote comprehension can be
applied before (e.g., skimming), during (e.g., comprehension monitoring), or after reading the text
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 9
(e.g., re-reading the text). Strategic readers iise appropriate strategies that fit the text, purpose and
occasion (Paris, Wasik, & Turner, 1991).
How Metacognition Aids in Comprehension. Metacognition or, more specifically,
"metacomprehension" has been shown to play an important role in the comprehension process.
Garner (1987, 1994) suggests that reading, since it is such an interactive and constructive process,
logically involves executive control and metacognition. There has been a vast amount of research
dedicated to the area of metacognition and reading with regard to how the active reader can
optimize their own learning (Brown & Campione, 1977; Garner & Kraus, 1982; Garner & Reis,
1981; Myers & Paris, 1978; Paris & Myers, 1981). Ryan et al. (1982) suggest that the
comprehension failure in poor readers who have adequate decoding skills is largely due to their
lack of active participation or strategy use while reading.
In a study of metacognitive skills, Flavell and Wellman (1977) investigated the recall o f
preschool and elementary school children on a set of items. The children were asked to study these
items until they could remember them perfectly. What they found was that older subjects, after
studying for a while, said they knew the items and showed perfect recall. In contrast, the younger
children studied for a while, said they were prepared, and then showed very poor recall. These
results were the foundation for further studies into metacognition, or one's knowledge about their
own thinking. Many studies (Brown, 1978; Flavell , 1978; Flavell & Wellman, 1977; Myers &
Paris, 1978; Paris & Myers, 1981) have examined metacognition in children and found that poor
readers do not have adequate metacognitive skills, such as cognitive monitoring. Poor
metacognition and comprehension monitoring can lead to comprehension failures.
Paris and Myers (1981) compared comprehension and memory skills of fourth grade poor
and good readers. The children's comprehension monitoring was measured through
self-corrections, directed underlining of incomprehensible words, and study behaviors. The
authors found that poor readers engaged in significantly less monitoring on all three measures as
compared to the good readers. These findings were also correlated with difficulties in
comprehension and recall. Additionally, the poor readers adopted decoding strategies rather than
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 10
comprehension strategies during reading and they were less skilled at applying cognitive
monitoring during comprehension failures (Paris & Myers, 1981).
One method used to assess comprehension monitoring is error detection. In an error
detection task, errors are embedded in a text so that it no longer makes sense to the reader. Garner
and Kraus (1982) investigated the detection of inconsistencies both in and among sentences by
good and poor comprehenders. Thirty children in the 5 t h grade participated in this study, 15 good
and 15 poor comprehenders. The children were given two passages, one about a train, and one
about a ship. Each passage contained five sentences of similar structure. Inconsistencies were
contained in the first and last sentences. The students were also given two additional altered
passages that were adapted in order to create intersentence inconsistencies (inconsistencies within
the sentence only). These inconsistencies were found in the last sentence of both these passages.
The authors reported that only four of the 12 good comprehenders found the intersentence
inconsistencies. A l l 12 good comprehenders detected the intrasentence inconsistencies. None of
the 15 poor comprehenders detected either type o f inconsistency. Garner and Kraus (1982)
concluded that the poor comprehenders had not used any comprehension monitoring strategies.
A study by Paris and Oka (1986) clearly demonstrated the importance of metacognitive
skills in aiding comprehension. These authors implemented an experimental curriculum that
taught strategy use to five hundred children in grades 3 and five hundred in grade 5. A number of
pre- and post-test batteries were administered to all the children. Paris and Oka (1986) reported
that all o f the children, regardless of reading ability, who received the strategy training increased
their awareness about reading and had significant gains in metacognition and comprehension
levels.
In more recent investigations on metacognition, Turner (1995) found that grade one
children, when given open literacy tasks, used more metacognitive behaviors and strategies, such
as rehearsal, planning and self-monitoring. Similarly, Neuman (1997) reported that preschoolers
engaged in strategic behaviors in a number of problem-solving situations. Finally, Perry (1998)
examined self-regulated learning (SRL) in grade 2 and 3 children. She found that in classrooms
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 11
that were considered high-SRL (teachers use and promote SRL) , children engaged in more
self-regulated learning, such as monitoring and evaluating their own writing (Perry, 1998).
In conclusion, the investigations mentioned above clearly show how children with
metacognitive skills who use comprehension monitoring strategies have better comprehension
skills than those who do not have these metacognitive abilities. Additionally, when children are
trained in these metacognitive strategies their awareness of reading and reading comprehension
improves significantly. It is apparent that metacognition is necessary for successful
comprehension of text.
To date, very few studies of children with hyperlexia have examined their metacognitive
activities. In the few studies that have briefly examined whether these children self-correct during
reading (Healy et al., 1982; Worthy & Invernizzi, 1992), the findings suggest that these children
seldom self-correct and hence show little use of cognitive monitoring. For example, in their study
of 12 children with hyperlexia, Healy et al. (1982) found that although their participants did
self-correct when reading they did so immediately after the word instead o f at the end of the
sentence. Conversely, normal readers tend to self-correct errors at the end of a sentence once they
realize the sentence made no sense. Healy et al. (1982) therefore suggested that this pattern of
self-correction showed that these children caught errors on a word level and perhaps a syntactic
level, yet they were not showing comprehension of the sentence. Similarly, Worthy and Invernizzi
(1995), in their case study of a 14-year-old girl with hyperlexia, reported that out of 25 miscues
made, none were corrected, two were syntactically acceptable but none were semantically
acceptable. In light of this information, there is a high probability that children with hyperlexia
lack the important metacognitive skills that aid in reading comprehension.
Operational Definition of Metacognition. For the purpose of this investigation,
metacognition wi l l be defined in terms of the students abilities to: (a) monitor their own
comprehension by re-reading anything they missed or did not understand, (b) self-correct when
reading errors occur, and (c) evaluate their understanding of the reading process.
Motivation and Interest
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 12
Numerous studies have determined that motivation plays an important role in learning and
in the use of metacognitive strategies (Borkowski et al., 1985). Children need to be motivated and
interested in order to use strategies for learning. Interest in a topic has been shown to increase a
child's comprehension. Garner, Alexander, and Hare (1991) suggest that low interest in a topic or
task is one of the variables that can cause failure to comprehend text material. Additionally,
researchers have reported that children with high interest in a particular topic have shown better
comprehension o f that topic compared to topics of low interest. A recent study by De Sousa and
Oakhill (1996) investigated the effect of levels of interest on comprehension monitoring in 8- and
9-year-old good and poor comprehenders. The children were given passages of both high- and
low-interest that contained embedded errors. The authors found that the good comprehenders
performed well on both tasks, but the poor comprehenders performed significantly better on the
high interest than the low interest passages (De Sousa & Oakhil l , 1996). This confirmed the
hypothesis that level of interest has a positive influence on comprehension and comprehension
monitoring in children with poor comprehension skills.
Limitations of Past Research
There are some methodological limitations in several of the earlier investigations of
hyperlexia. To begin with, few studies identify comprehension as the primary focus o f their
investigation. Aram (1997) suggests that, although most investigators agree that there is a
comprehension deficit in hyperlexia, there is not enough research in the area to determine the
extent or the nature of this deficit. Many of the studies (Aram, Rose, & Horwitz, 1984; Elliot &
Needleman, 1976; Patti & Lupinetti, 1993; Siegel, 1984; Seymour & Evans, 1992; Worthy &
Invernizzi, 1993) were single subject case studies that do not allow for any comparison or
generalizations to be made. Additionally, in the few studies that did have multiple subjects
(Goldberg & Rothermel, 1984; Healy et al., 1982; Silberberg & Silberberg, 1967; Snowling &
Frith, 1986) there were a wide range of IQ scores and ages reported in the various subjects. In the
Healy et al. (1982) study, the ages of the children ranged from 5 through 11 years-of-age. The
participants in the Goldberg and Rothermel (1984) study had significant variance in their ages,
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 13
ranging from 5 through 17 years-of-age. Snowling and Frith (1986) selected their participants on
the basis of reading age. The autistic hyperlexic children ranged in reading age from 8 to 10
years-of-age. However, their matched comparison group o f mildly retarded children ranged in
reading age between 7 and 14 years-of-age (Snowling and Frith, 1986).
Similarly, the variance in IQ for subjects in the Silberberg and Silberberg (1967) study
ranged from nontestable to 126 on the Stanford-Binet (Terman & Merr i l l , 1960). Similarly, Healy
et al. (1982) reported IQ ranges on the McCarthy Scales (McCarthy, 1972) from 47 to 91 in their
participants. Goldberg and Rothermel (1984) reported only mean scores of their subject's IQ
ratings from the W I S C - R (Wechsler, 1974) o f 70. Since the true definition of hyperlexia is one that
describes children with definitive cognitive deficits, then many o f the children in the
aforementioned studies would not fit into this category. M y investigation wi l l attempt to correct
some of these prior limitations by specifically examining comprehension in hyperlexic children
with definite cognitive deficits (IQ ranging from 40 - 70) and with a small age-range o f 7 - 11
years-of-age.
Overview and Specific Research Question
Children with hyperlexia have an excellent ability to decode words. (Healy et al., 1982;
Siegel, 1984; Silberberg & Silberberg, 1967,1968,1971); however, their comprehension skills are
found to be seriously deficient (Healy et al., 1982; Huttenlocher & Huttenlocher, 1979; Siegel,
1984; Silberberg & Silberberg, 1971). There is also consensus among researchers that hyperlexic
children have great difficulty understanding language both written and oral (Aram, 1997).
Although much research has been done on the reading process of hyperlexics (Cobrinik,
1982; Elliot & Needleman, 1981; Healy et al., 1982; Siegel, 1984; Seymour & Evans, 1992;
Silberberg & Silberberg, 1971), little research has agreed upon the underlying reason for their poor
comprehension (Aram, 1997). Some research has investigated the syntactic versus semantic
aspects of language and reading comprehension of hyperlexics (Goldberg & Rothermel, 1984;
Healy et al., 1982; Siegel, 1984; Seymour & Evans, 1992; Worthy & Invernizzi, 1992) but
inconsistent findings have been reported. To date, few studies have specifically investigated the
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 14
schematic knowledge, interest level, and metacognitive abilities in these children. Thus the present
study is intended to further clarify the research concerning poor comprehension skills o f
hyperlexic children arid extend this research, particularly in regard to their schemata or prior
knowledge, level o f interest, and metacognition, specifically comprehension monitoring and
self-correction. Two children who meet the criteria for hyperlexia and two children with mental
retardation, matched according to their mental ages, were tested and compared on general
comprehension abilities, schema (prior knowledge) and metacognition, in addition to general tests
for attention, memory and single-word receptive vocabulary. The overall question that was
answered is what accounts for the poor comprehension in these hyperlexic children?
1. Is their low cognitive language ability sufficient as an explanation for their poor
comprehension (i.e., is there low cognitive and language ability sufficient as an explanation for
their poor comprehension)?
2 . Do they comprehend better when prior knowledge is relatively high?
3. Do they comprehend better when their interest in a topic is relatively high?
4. Do they monitor their own comprehension?
5. Do they self-correct?
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 15
C H A P T E R II
Literature Review
In this chapter I w i l l review the literature in the area of hyperlexia, particularly the
definition, and characteristics of hyperlexia, and the possible effects hyperlexia has on reading
comprehension. I w i l l also examine the hyperlexia literature in terms of comprehension, both
listening and reading, with specific focus on reading comprehension. Next, I w i l l examine the
areas of cognition and memory, particularly, I w i l l review the literature in the area of long-term
memory and schema and its effects on comprehension. Then, I w i l l review the literature in the area
of metacognition and strategy use and, specifically, look at how they aid reading comprehension.
Additionally, I w i l l briefly examine the literature in the area of effects of interest on reading and
comprehension. Finally, I w i l l end the chapter with a summary and conclusions regarding
hyperlexia and reading comprehension that w i l l provide a strong argument for my thesis question.
Hyperlexia was given its name by Silberberg and Silberberg (1967), who studied several
cases of children who showed exceptional word decoding ability. However, there had been cases
of hyperlexia described in the literature as early as the 1930's. Munroe (1932) described children
with word reading ability that resembles what today is known as hyperlexia. He describes these
children as "the defective child who reads fluently although he is unable to deal intelligently with
the material read" (Munroe, 1932; p. 1). Even Kanner (1943) when observing children with
infantile autism, identified particular children with reading ability and good memory for words.
Yet it was not until fhel960's when Silberberg and Silberberg defined hyperlexia, "For this
phenomenon of specific word recognition skill we have coined the term hyperlexia" (p. 41). Since
this time there have been many studies investigating the incredible abilities and surprising
cognitive and language impairments in these children (Cobrinik, 1982; Elliot & Needleman, 1981;
Goldberg & Rothermel, 1984; Healy et al., 1982; Richman & Kitchel l , 1979; Siegel, 1984;
Silberberg & Silberberg, 1971; Temple, 1990; Worthy & Invernizzi, 1992).
The literature on hyperlexia since Silberberg and Silberberg (1967) has examined at
various aspects of the disorder. Many studies have attempted to understand the precocious word
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 16
decoding skills (Cobrinik, 1982; Goldberg & Rothermel, 1984; Richmond & Kitchel l ; Silberberg
& Silberberg, 1968-69). Additionally, several attempts have been made by researchers to
understand the incredible deficit in language comprehension in the hyperlexic child (Aaron,
Frantz, & Manges, 1990; Glosser, Friedman, & Roeltgen, 1996; Healy et al., 1982; Richman &
Kitchell , 1981; Seymour & Evans, 1992; Siegel, 1984; Snowling & Frith, 1986). A few studies
have even examined hyperlexia occurring in children with autism (Snowling & Frith, 1986; Tirosh
& Canby, 1993; Whitehouse & Harris, 1984). However, the research is very limited in the areas of
prior knowledge, and no studies with hyperlexic children have been done looking at
metacognition. Given the goals of my study, the literature review in this chapter summarizes the
research in the areas of hyperlexia, paying close attention to the studies on comprehension. Most
of the research has focused on the precocious word decoding skills and, relatively few studies have
examined the nature and extent of the comprehension diffulties these children experience.
Specifically, the role o f prior knowledge or schema, metacognitive monitoring and strategy use,
and interest on comprehension wi l l be examined. Given the limited research in these areas on
hyperlexic children, additional research in the area o f schema involving both normal and learning
disabled children wi l l be reviewed. Similarly, due to the lack of research in the area of hyperlexia
and metacognition, research involving normal and learning disabled children wi l l also be
examined.
Hyperlexia
Definitions of Hyperlexia
Although most researchers agree on the major characteristics of hyperlexia, not all
clinicians initially agreed upon the definition. The Silberberg and Silberberg (1967) study was
truly the first definition of this complex and perplexing disorder. These authors observed and
examined over 20 individual cases o f children with "specific word recognition skills" (Silberberg
& Silberberg, 1967, p.41). The Silberberg's reported a wide range of intellectual functioning in
these children, from "mentally defective to bright normal" (Silberberg and Silberberg, 1967, p.41).
The authors noted similarities in these children, such that their ability to recognize words was
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 17
significantly higher than their comprehension of the material read or their verbal functioning level.
The authors viewed hyperlexia as appearing on a continuum o f reading ability. On one end o f the
continuum children are labelled as dyslexic, at the other end, hyperlexic. They additionally
suggested that hyperlexia could be a physiological variant that manifested itself in a specific talent
which was completely independent of cognitive functioning and IQ. Three main criteria were
outlined for the definition of hyperlexia: (a) a discrepancy between word recognition and
comprehension of the material such that children with hyperlexia can read words but do not
comprehend what they read, (b) a coexistence of a cognitive and developmental delay, and (c)
early age of onset.
Another variation of the definition comes from Huttenlocher and Huttenlocher (1972).
This study reported on three children, ranging in ages from 4.11 to 5.2 years, and evaluated their
ability to carry out two- and three-part instructions. These instructions were given in both oral and
written forms. Each o f the three children correctly answered only 14, 11, and 7 out o f 20 spoken
commands. For the written commands, one child failed to respond, and the other two scored 11
and 13 out of 20 commands. In conclusion, the authors proposed that hyperlexia is a syndrome that
should be placed in "a group with other specific cerebral disorders such as developmental aphasias
and dyslexia" (Huttenlocher & Huttenlocher, 1972, p. 1112).
Elliot and Needleman (1976) proposed a somewhat different view of hyperlexia. They
suggested hyperlexia be defined as, "a remarkably accelerated ability to recognize written words,
which may or may not occur along with truly pathological conditions" (Elliot & Needleman, 1976,
p. 340). These authors were the first to view hyperlexia in terms of giftedness rather than a
disorder. They presented a case study of a mute, hyperlexic girl at the age of 5.8 years. A n informal
assessment of her abilities determined that she could: (a) identify a label, (b) correctly identify
objects according to category, usage or other attributes, (c) match pictures to written labels, (d)
respond correctly 100% of the time to one and two-part commands given both orally and written,
and (e) answer questions, given both orally and in writing, about a book she was reading and point
to the correct answer. The authors felt the evidence in this study led to the conclusion that
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 18
hyperlexia is not a disorder, but rather a manifestation of a hyper accelerated cognitive ability.
Healy et al. (1982) conducted a study of hyperlexic children in order to have a more
complete description of their cognitive, linguistic, and reading abilities. Twelve children
participated in the study who all had early interest in words, onset of word recognition before the
age of five years, linguistic and cognitive disorders, and a level of word recognition that was
significantly above their cognitive or linguistic abilities. Each child was tested individually, and
received multiple tests of cognition, language, and reading competence. To investigate i f their
abilities were specific to auditory or visual modalities, several tests were given in both oral and
written formats. Additionally, the families of these children were interviewed to assess possible
commonality in their development. Subsequent to this investigation, Healy et al. raised several
issues regarding the precise definition of hyperlexia, particularly concerning the hallmark
characteristics of this condition. They concluded that the term hyperlexia should:
. . . be reserved for reference to the syndrome characterized by spontaneous and intense
early interest in letters and words which results in the development of extensive word
recognition prior to age 5, coupled with significantly disordered language and cognitive
development (Healy et al., 1982, p. 22).
Healy et al.'s construct of hyperlexia is much more concrete and specific in terms o f its onset as
compared to the original definition by the Silberbergs. Much of the literature on hyperlexia since
this study uses this definition and the criteria Healy and her colleagues specified, as well as the
Silberberg's definition.
Characteristics of Children with Hyperlexia
Hyperlexia is a highly variant disorder consisting of a multitude of characteristics, all o f
which could have an effect on comprehension abilities. Past studies have consistently reported
precocious word-reading combined with poor comprehension, poor language, multiple behavioral
problems, and undeveloped social skills in children with hyperlexia. This disorder does not usually
occur on its own, but rather with a variety of concomitant developmental disorders including
autism, pervasive developmental disorders, attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder and learning
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 19
disabilities (Aram & Healy, 1988). This section of the chapter wi l l review the literature with regard
to particular characteristics and traits that are associated with the disorder known as hyperlexia and
consider the implications for comprehension in these children.
Cognition and Memory. Many studies on hyperlexia have examined a variety o f cognitive
attributes of children whose reading is characterized by it (Elliot & Needleman, 1976; Healy et al.,
1982; Huttenlocher & Huttenlocher, 1973; Mehegan & Dreifus, 1972; Richman & Kitchell , 1981;
Siegel, 1984; Temple, 1990). Wi th regard to IQ, a large range has been recorded among many
cases (Cobrinik, 1974; Goldberg & Rothermel, 1984; Healy et al., 1982; Richman & Kitchell ,
1981), with some IQ scores being near, at, or above 100. This creates a problem with regard to the
definition of hyperlexia, which includes significant cognitive delays, since individuals with IQ
scores near normal should not be considered truly hyperlexic. However, many studies in the
literature still reported IQ scores that were near normal. For example, Silberberg and Silberberg
(1967) reported IQ's from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) (Wechsler, 1949)
and the Stanford-Binet (Terman & Merr i l l , 1960) that ranged from nontestable to 126. Fontanelle
and Alarcon (1982) reported Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI)
(Wechsler, 1967) and W I S C - R (Wechsler, 1974) Ful l Scale IQ scores from 57 to 118. Cobrinik
(1974) was one of the few studies that remained true to the definition of hyperlexia, reporting
W I S C Ful l Scale IQ scores from 47 to 71, whereas Richman and Kitchell (1981) had children
whose W I S C scores fell in the normal range, between 92 and 116.
Despite this wide range in IQ scores, many studies have reported a consistent cognitive
profile. Several researchers have reported some definite patterns of cognition in these children.
Several studies (Cobrinik, 1974; Healy et al., 1982; Huttenlocher & Huttenlocher, 1973; Richman
& Kitchell , 1981) found strengths in repetition memory tasks and concrete categorization.
Numerical memory for digits both backward and forward was found to be a particular strength as
well as repetitive tapping sequences. However, Healy et al. (1982) reported that when no
immediate sensory cues were available, and they needed to utilize abstract thinking, performance
in their participants faltered. Weaknesses in memory were commonly seen in their inability to
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 20
retain meaningful sentences, whereas strengths were found in recalling unrelated words.
Formulating definitions for concrete nouns was extremely difficult, despite the fact that they
obviously knew the term. A n example supplied by Healy et al. (1982) describes a child defining
door as "1 close" (p. 12). Participants in several studies also had difficulty in organizing
relationships or patterns between stimuli, both verbal and numerical (Cossu & Marshall, 1986;
Healy et al., 1982; Richman & Kitchell , 1981). This was apparent in such tasks as puzzle solving,
word knowledge, and conceptual grouping (Cossu & Marshall, 1986; Healy et al., 1982; Richman
& Kitchell , 1981). Additionally, failure on age-appropriate Piagetian operations have been
reported in many of these children (Cossu & Marshall, 1986; Healy et al., 1982; Huttenlocher &
Huttenlocher, 1973).
Other investigators have reported poor memory skills in their participants with hyperlexia
(Cossu & Marshall, 1986; Goldberg & Rothermel, 1984). Goldberg and Rothermel reported poor
memory functioning in their 8 participants. Digit span scores in these children were found to be
consistently subnormal whereas the highest scores were found in block design. The authors
concluded that "it is unlikely that exceptional retention abilities for verbal material play a part in
hyperlexia" (Goldberg & Rothermel, 1984; p.776).
Associative reasoning skills in these children has been consistently reported as very
deficient (Cobrinik, 1974; Richman & Kitchell , 1981). Richman and Kitchell reported that all
their participants did poorly on associative-reasoning tests of the Hiskey-Nebraska Test of
Learning Aptitude ( H N T L A ) (Hiskey, 1966), particularly picture association, picture
identification, and block patterns. Similar results were reported by Cobrinik (1974), who found
success in his participants with rote memory tasks and most impairment with arithmetic, picture
completion, picture arrangement, coding and comprehension.
Since memory in these children has not been significantly studied, it is difficult to make
strong statements about the link between their memory function and their comprehension deficit.
Although it appears that digit span memory tasks are usually quite strong for these children, some
studies still report poor memory functioning in these areas. It seems that most of the information
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 21
on memory that we do have suggests that these children have adequate encoding and retrieving
items from memory. However, since there have been alternative findings, it cannot yet be
concluded that memory has no part in the comprehension deficit in these children. A more detailed
look at memory functioning in children with hyperlexia is necessary before any conclusions in this
area can be determined.
Language. Many studies have assessed language abilities in young children with
hyperlexia (Aram, Rose, & Horwitz, 1984; Cobrinik, 1974; Elliott & Needleman, 1976; Goldberg
& Rothermel, 1984; Healy et al., 1982). However, there has been no definitive link between the
language problems and the comprehension failure in these children. Although some authors
suggest that these children can only comprehend as well as their language allows (Snowling &
Frith, 1986), there is not yet enough information on the comprehension deficit to come to any
definite conclusions.
It is quite common that these children receive professional attention because of their failure
to develop speech and language as expected (Aram, 1997). In Healy et al.'s (1982) study, out of
the 12 subjects, four children began using a few simple words around 1-year-of-age, but then
stopped talking altogether until the ages of 4 or 5 years. Additionally, one of the children in
Healy's study developed single words at 1-year-of-age but did not begin to use sentences until
4.6-years-of-age. In several studies children with hyperlexia have demonstrated word recognition
in reading either prior to or concurrent with talking (Aram et al., 1984; Cobrinik, 1974; Elliott &
Needleman, 1976; Goldberg & Rothermel, 1984; Healy et al., 1982).
Linguistic functioning in children with hyperlexia has been described in terms of a severe
impairment of expressive language (Aram et al., 1984; Healy et al., 1984; Huttenlocher &
Huttenlocher, 1973; Mehegan & Dreifus, 1972). In a study that examined 12 children with
hyperlexia, Mehegan and Dreifus (1972) describe the extent of their language problems:
. . . they manifested an unusual and premature talent in reading against a background of
generalized failure of development, or marked impairment, of other language functions.
For the most part, spontaneous speech was little in evidence, and in only three could it
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 22
be said to be truly present. In only one o f these three could it be used in meaningful
conversation. The other two showed a senseless and ill-directed logorrhea but would
occasionally respond with single words. A l l three, however, betrayed a primary
dysarthria, generally lingual in type and echolalia was a prominent characteristic
(p. 1106).
The children in this study were 11 boys and 1 girl, and ranged in ages from 5 - 9 years. A l l but one
of these children, upon psychometric evaluation, was found to be in the moderate to severely .
retarded range (Mehegan & Dreifus, 1972). Even more surprising was that in spite of their
language dysfunction they all had an extreme talent and ability to read very well .
Several authors used the Test of Language Development ( T O L D ; Newcomer & Hammil l ,
1977) to assess linguistic functioning in their participants (Healy et al., 1982; Worthy &
Invernizzi, 1995). The T O L D consists of various subtests that assess both syntactic and semantic
skills through use of picture recognition and expressive language tasks (Newcomer & Hammil l ,
1977). Both studies reported that the language performance in their participants fell below the
normal mean for their age. For example, Worthy and Invernizzi (1995) reported that their
participant's T O L D score was below the 50 t h percentile. Similarly, Healy et al. (1982) found,
"Language performance was highly discrepant from chronological age, with most subscores
falling below one standard deviation from the mean for age and none above 1 S D " (Healy et al.,
1982, p. 14).
In summary, there appears to remain many issues regarding memory and cognition in
children with hyperlexia. Not all studies have reported consistent findings. With regard to
cognition, IQ scores have been highly variant across the studies reviewed. This extreme variance
in IQ may be inevitable; however, IQ scores that are close to average (around 100) do not fit the
true definition of hyperlexia and thus should not have been included in these studies. In terms of
memory, some investigations found strengths in digit span memory and rote memory, other studies
reported very poor memory in these areas. Since there appear to be so many different findings in
this area, no strong conclusions can be drawn from these studies.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 23
Neurobiology. Many studies over the years have investigated the neurological as well as
biological aspects of hyperlexia (Aram, Rose, & Horwitz; Goldberg & Rothermel, 1984; Healy &
Aram, 1986; Elliot & Needleman, 1976; Huttenlocher & Huttenlocher, 1973; Mehegan & Dreifus,
1976; Snowling & Frith, 1986; Tirosh & Canby, 1993). A neurobiological deficit could possibly
help explain some of the comprehension deficit in these children. Yet despite hyperlexia's
complex and marked language and behavioral disorganization, there has not been, to-date, any
consistent neurobiological findings (Aram, 1997). However, the gender ratio for hyperlexia is
consistently 7:1 males:females (Aram, 1997; Healy & Aram, 1986). Additionally, Healy and
Aram (1986) reported some consistent family histories of these children in the areas of language
and reading disorders.
In a detailed study about how genetics influence hyperlexia, Healy and Aram (1986)
examined 12 families with hyperlexic children. Their findings suggest a definitive pattern o f
familial disorders in language and reading, as well as other genetic similarities. For example,
left-handedness was reported in 67% of the fathers, 54% of the brothers, and 40% of the sisters.
Equally as interesting was the finding that 11 of the 12 fathers reported some type of anomaly in
their learning history. A n overwhelming number o f fathers, eight, had some dyslexic
symptomatology. Similarly, 44% of siblings reported being diagnosed with some type o f
language-learning disorder. Additionally, there were two confirmed incidences of hyperlexia in
male siblings. These are all very strong indications of a certain degree o f genetic influence in
hyperlexia. However, as Aram (1997) commented, ".. .only one study o f 12 children has
systematically recorded familial language and reading histories" (p. 4).
Many investigations have noted some common clinical presentations in their subjects, such
as, mental retardation, autism, hyperkinetic syndrome, overactivity, distractibility and short
attention spans (Elliot & Needleman, 1976; Huttenlocher & Huttenlocher, 1973; Mehegan &
Dreifus, 1972; Siegel, 1984; Worthy & Invernizzi, 1995). For example, Mehegan and Dreifus
reported eight o f their participants had significant delays in motor milestones and all children
showed severe retardation. Another common trait frequently reported in children with hyperlexia
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 24
is autism or autistic features, such as echolalia and rocking back and forth (Cobrinik, 1982;
Huttenlocher & Huttenlocher, 1973; Mehegan & Dreifus, 1972; Siegel, 1984; Tirosh & Canby,
1993). Tirosh and Canby performed thorough physical and neurological exams on five children
with hyperlexia and autism and five autistic children without hyperlexia and reported the
hyperlexic group had more persistent immediate echolalia and much better splinter skills, such as
drawing. Additionally, Siegel (1984) reported autistic characteristics, such.as rocking and
echolalia, in a 7-year-old hyperlexic girl.
Neurological examinations in many cases were consistently abnormal and findings
suggested either unilateral or bilateral hemispheric dysfunction (Elliot & Needleman, 1976;
Mehegan & Dreifus, 1972; Tirosh & Canby, 1993). Neurological examination in the Tirosh and
Canby study revealed a better status for the hyperlexic group. However, all ten of the children had
abnormal exams. Additionally, one of the children with hyperlexia showed a generalized
nonspecific slow pattern with no lateralization on his E E C Conversely, some studies have
reported normal neurological examinations. For example, Huttenlocher and.Huttenlocher (1973)
reported that all their participants had normal electroencephalographic exams and normal skull
x-rays.
In examining all of these studies it appears there are not yet any consistent neurobiological
findings. However, there are many findings that may have an impact on these children's cognition
and their comprehension abilities. The multiple findings of hyperactivity and short attention span
(Elliot & Needleman, 1976; Healy et al., 1982; Mehegan & Dreifus, 1972; Siegel, 1984) could
help explain the inability to focus attention which makes comprehension of reading materials
extremely difficult. Additionally, the various developmental delays, particularly mental
retardation and autistic-like features that are found in so many of these children could partially
explain some cognitive and comprehension problems.
Reading Strategies at the Word Level. Different children may use various routes to read
words. Some children prefer to read phonologically whereas some prefer to read orthographically.
Learning about the strategies that children with hyperlexia use to read words may give some
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 25
insight into their reading comprehension deficit.
A couple of authors have suggested a direct reading route in children with hyperlexia
(Goldberg & Rothermel, 1984; Seymour & Evans, 1992). Both these investigations tested their
participants on various formal and informal language and reading tests. Goldberg and Rothermel
(1984) reported that when reading aloud, all 8 participants read high imagery words better than
low imagery words and high frequency words better than low frequency words. Additionally, all
the children were able to read function words with more than 85% accuracy. The authors
concluded that this was accomplished via the direct reading route since the children tended
towards more visual errors in short words, which suggests attempts to access the words directly,
not via phonological routes.
Cobrinik (1982) investigated the ability of hyperlexic children to identify visually
degraded words. Nine hyperlexic boys, between the ages of 9- through 13-years, were given an
incomplete word task in which the cue characteristics on individual letters were made ambiguous.
The task consisted of fourteen familiar words between 7 and 9 letters in length that had partially
deleted portions of the letters in each word. The task was estimated in difficulty to be at about the
3 r d - to 4 t h-grade level. When normal children and adults were tested on this task, they found it to be
very difficult. The author found that the hyperlexic children were far superior in deciphering the
incomplete words when compared to the normal control group. These results suggest that
hyperlexics use a configurational approach to identifying words whereas normal children use a
serial and analytic process. Cobrinik concluded that hyperlexic reading is ideographic.
Other studies have reported a phonological reading route (Healy et al., 1982; Siegel, 1984).
These authors found that when children with hyperlexia were tested with non-word reading, they
excelled compared to normal readers. In 1984, Siegel described the participant in her study, who
despite delayed cognitive, language and motor development was able to read at a 2.8 grade level
on the Wide Range Achievement Test ( W R A T ) (Jastak & Jastak, 1978). When given the
Goldman, Fristoe, and Woodcock (GFW) Sound Symbol test (Goldman, Fritoe, & Woodcock,
1974), which tests the reading of non-words, she scored in the 61 s t percentile. Additionally, out of
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 26
36 regular words and 36 irregular words, she read 33 and 31 respectively. From these findings,
Siegel concluded that children with hyperlexia, "indicate a reversal of a normal process because of
their use of grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules in reading is clearly more advanced than
their semantic or syntactic processing" (p. 583).
It appears that the findings in this area vary as to which reading route is preferred by
children with hyperlexia. Many studies have found phonologic strategies to be preferred (Siegel,
1984) whereas others have reported orthographic strategies to be the route used (Cobrinik, 1982)
and some suggest multiple routes (Goldberg & Rothermel, 1984). Whatever route they use to read
the words, it appears that these children are definitely reading without any meaning.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia
Over the years, various studies have examined comprehension in hyperlexic children
(Aram, Rose, & Horwitz, 1984; Elliot & Needleman, 1981; Goldberg & Rothermel, 1984; Healy et
al., 1982; Huttenlocher & Huttenlocher, 1973; Patti & Lupinetti, 1992; Siegel, 1984; Silberberg &
Silberberg, 1968, 1971; Snowling & Frith, 1986; Temple, 1990; Welsh, Pennington, & Rogers,
1987; Worthy & Invernizzi, 1995). Most o f these studies have focused on multiple aspects of
hyperlexia (Aram, Rose, & Horwitz, 1984; Elliot & Needleman, 1981; Healy et al., 1982; Patti &
Lupinetti, 1992; Siegel, 1984; Silberberg & Silberberg, 1968, 1971). Few studies have strictly
examined comprehension in hyperlexic children (Snowling & Frith, 1986; Temple, 1990; Welsh,
Pennington, & Rogers, 1987; Worthy & Invernizzi, 1995). Sti l l fewer studies have examined
multiple subjects with hyperlexia regarding their comprehension abilities (Snowling & Frith,
1986). Despite this apparent lack of research in this area, it is continually documented as being a
large component within hyperlexia (Aram, 1997).
Comprehension of Spoken and Written Language
Comprehension in children with hyperlexia has been examined in terms of both spoken and
written formats. Additionally, there have been several studies that have compared the two
modalities of aural and written comprehension (Healy et al., 1982; Huttenlocher & Huttenlocher,
1973; Temple, 1990). In this section of the chapter the literature in the area o f language and
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 27
reading comprehension wi l l be thoroughly examined.
Auditory Comprehension. Several investigators have examined auditory comprehension in
children with hyperlexia and had similar conclusions. In tests where 2 and 3-part instructions that
were read aloud to them, most of the children did very poorly. A n example of the directions given
would be, "Clap your hands. Then sit on the table." (Huttenlocher & Huttenlocher, 1973, p. 1110).
Upon comparing these results with normal children of 4 '/z-years, the authors concluded that, "The
basic language defect appeared to be in the association between speech symbols and meaning."
(Huttenlocher & Huttenlocher, 1973, p. 1115). Similarly, 8 hyperlexic participants in the Goldberg
and Rothermel (1984) study were asked to perform some simple oral commands such as, "Touch
the black square after you touch the circle" (p. 769). This test was given to assess comprehension
of both syntax and sequencing. Out of 16 items on the test, the participants could only respond
correctly to less than half of them.
A more recent study by Glosser, Friedman and Roeltgen (1996) examined the patterns of
development of reading and spelling in a hyperlexic child. This longitudinal case study involved
one child, L A , who at 6 years old was diagnosed with hyperlexia. L A had a full-scale IQ score of
51 on the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI) (Wechsler, 1967). A
detailed analysis of both oral and written language abilities was completed to better characterize
the reading abilities. Among the battery of tests given, a single word auditory comprehension test
was administered, using the Peabody Picture and Vocabulary Test - Revised (PPVT-R) (Dunn &
Dunn, 1981). From the data collected the authors concluded that L A showed severe impairments
in semantic linguistic processing across all modalities o f stimulus presentation and response.
Additionally, substantial deficits were found in comprehension of both oral and written words
(Glosser etal., 1996).
In conclusion, it appears that there is a deficit in auditory comprehension in children with
hyperlexia. A finding in these children was summed up by Goldberg and Rothermel (1984) who
commented "the most striking facet of the hyperlexic children's performance on metalinguistic
reading tasks was their inability to grasp instructions. More than half the sample could not
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 28
comprehend the tasks' instructions" (p. 777).
Auditory versus Written Comprehension. There have been several studies that have
examined and contrasted auditory and written forms of comprehension in children with hyperlexia
(Aram et al., 1984; Glosser et al., 1996; Goodman, 1972; Healy et al., 1982; Huttenlocher &
Huttenlocher, 1973; Snowling & Frith, 1986; Temple, 1990). Only one of these studies (Temple)
found a nonsignificant trend for written comprehension being better in these children as compared
to aural comprehension. In this section, I w i l l review these various studies and examine the
evidence that has thus far been put forward.
Researchers have reported no differences in comprehension found between auditory and
written modalities. A l l the participants in both the Healy et al. (1982) study and the Snowling and
Frith (1986) study had close to equal scores for auditory and written comprehension tests. The
participants in the Healy et al. study were tested for performance in both auditory and visual input
modalities on the T O L D and the McCarthy Scales in the auditory mode and not a week later were
they tested in the written format. The authors found differences between the modalities on the
grammatic completion subtests in which the mean score for auditory modality was higher than for
visual modality in 3 subtests of the T O L D (opposite analogies, oral vocabulary, oral
commissions). The participants scored lower on auditory and higher on visual on the grammatic
understanding, grammatic completion and oral vocabulary subtests o f the McCarthy instrument.
Despite these small differences, the authors still concluded that hyperlexia consisted of a
generalized cognitive deficit with no preference in modality processing. Similarly, Snowling and
Frith (1986) compared auditory and written comprehension in their participants on the Bishop's
(1983) Test for the Reception o f Grammar (T.R.O.G.) (Bishop, 1983). The authors reported that
the mean correct number of responses were nearly the same in both written and spoken formats
(24/40 and 23/40 respectively).
Conversely, Temple (1990) found a nonsignificant trend towards a preference for written
over auditory comprehension. The author assessed her case study, M S , on both auditory and
written comprehension across multiple reading tests. First, M S was given 100 stimuli from the
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 29
P P V T in three different formats, the first was read aloud, the second was presented in written form
for reading and matching with the correct stimulus, and the third was presented in written form for
reading aloud. Both the T . R . O . G . and the Neale Anlaysis of Reading were also given in the same
three formats. Temple found "in comparison to reading accuracy both auditory and reading
comprehension are poor, with auditory comprehension at the lowest level" (p 304). For all three o f
the assessments given, M S had higher comprehension scores for written material rather than the
material that was read to her.
In conclusion, it appears that the comprehension deficit in children with hyperlexia is not
specific to only one modality. Although most findings appear to indicate that the comprehension
deficit is equal in both written and aural modalities, it is still somewhat questionable i f reading
comprehension is not slightly better than aural comprehension. The present study wi l l focus on
reading comprehension in these children and w i l l not examine auditory comprehension separately.
Reading Comprehension. Many studies have assessed the comprehension o f the written
word at the word, sentence, or paragraph level (Aram et al., 1984; Glosser et al., 1996; Goldberg &
Rothermel, 1984; Healy et al., 1982; Richman & Kitchel l , 1981; Seymour & Evans, 1992; Siegel,
1984; Snowling & Frith, 1986; Temple, 1990). Most of these investigators agree that hyperlexia
consists of both incredible decoding abilities and extreme deficits in comprehension. However,
there is not yet a consensus as to how much of the deficit is semantic, syntactic, or discourse-based
(Aram, 1997). The lack o f unity in this arena may be due to two factors: (a) the limited number of
studies in the area of language and reading comprehension in hyperlexia, or (b) that different
children may have differing degrees o f impairment (Aram, 1997). Most of these studies agree that
both semantic and syntactic comprehension is severely defective (Aram et al., 1984; Healy et al.,
1982; Siegel, 1984; Snowling & Frith, 1986). There are a few who suggest that the comprehension
deficits are more limited (Seymour & Evans, 1992; Temple, 1990). This section wi l l examine the
studies that have attempted to understand the comprehension deficit in hyperlexia.
Single-word and sentence comprehension has frequently been reported as sufficient in
children with hyperlexia (Goldberg & Rothermel, 1984; Welsh et al., 1987). Goldberg and
\
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 30
Rothermel (1984) used the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT, Dunn & Markwardt,
1970) to assess comprehension. The reading comprehension subtest asks the subject to match the
appropriate picture one o f four, to the sentence he/she reads aloud. The authors reported that the
children were successful at understanding single words and sentences.
The severity of the comprehension deficit in children with hyperlexia is commonly
documented in many investigations. Several authors have reported similar findings in regard to
paragraph and story comprehension (Goldberg & Rothermel, 1984; Healy et al., 1982; Siegel,
1984; Worthy & Invernizzi, 1995). On various tests of paragraph comprehension, children with
hyperlexia have been recorded as being unable to answer many i f not most o f the questions asked
of them (Goldberg & Rothermel, 1984; Worthy & Invernizzi, 1995). Goldberg and Rothermel
(1984) used the Durrell Analysis of Reading Difficulty (Durrell,T955) to test paragraph
comprehension in their participants. First the children read the passage out loud, then listened and
answered the questions asked by the investigator regarding the passage. The children were allowed
to look back into the passages to retrieve the answers. The passage each subject read was at the
grade level indicated by their P I A T reading recognition score. After reading the paragraphs, the
children were presented questions simultaneously in written and verbal form. The participants, on
average, could only respond to 33% of the questions.
Findings of a similar comprehension deficit in children with hyperlexia have been reported
in several studies (Healy et al., 1982; Siegel, 1984; Worthy & Invernizzi, 1995). For example,
Worthy and Invernizzi (1995) used the comprehension subtest of the Woodcock Reading Mastery
Test ( W R M T ) (Woodcock, 1973) to assess comprehension in their 14-year-old participant and
reported a grade level o f 3.1 on the passage. On both the Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI)
(Leslie & Caldwell , 1990) and an informal reading inventory (IRI) constructed by the authors and
their staff, which contain longer passages of text, the participant "could not recall anything or
answer questions about the upper level passages that she could read fluently" (Worthy &
Invernizzi, 1995; p. 594). The authors commented that, "her comprehension scores on both
inventories were below the primer level" (p. 594). Worthy and Invernizzi described how the
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 31
subject could not retell any of the stories nor could she discuss even the simplest stories that she
read or were read to her. For example, when "R" was asked to describe a 2 n d grade book about
George Washington that she was reading in class, she would often add in bits of information about
other famous men and presidents. Similarly, Siegel (1984) reported that upon questioning her
subject about the paragraphs she had just read, she could not answer most of the questions that
were asked of her. Siegel commented, "She did not even appear to understand the questions" (p.
580).
Some researchers have used altered paragraphs or reading miscue inventories to examine
reading comprehension at the paragraph level more in depth. Goldberg and Rothermel (1984) used
an altered paragraph task in which several grade 4 level paragraphs were changed in terms o f
period placement and word appearance. Periods were added to the paragraphs as well as put into
very inappropriate places. Additionally, some of the words in the paragraphs were altered in their
appearance such that a symbol, e.g., "+" was added to the word. The participants received both
altered and unaltered paragraph formats. The authors reported that the altering of punctuation did
not produce significant differences in reading the altered or unaltered formats. It appeared that the
children were using semantics to process the sentence. The authors concluded that hyperlexic
children appear to process semantically during reading and that they have a lexicon, although it is
a simple one.
Other authors have used the Reading Miscue Inventory (RMI) (Goodman & Burke, 1972)
to examine reading patterns. For example, Healy et al. (1982) found the pattern of self-correction
for hyperlexic children was found to be very different from normal readers. When using the R M I
the child reads a passage and then is asked to retell the story. Although the children with hyperlexia
did self-correct errors, they did so immediately after the mispronunciation rather than at the end of
the phrase. The authors proposed that: "this fact, as well as the finding that the overwhelming
majority of errors occurred from close graphic and sound correspondences, suggests that these
readers are uniquely responsive to the perceptual attributes o f the text rather than to the
meaning"(p. 17).
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 32
It appeared that these children did not realize (like normal readers) that they were not
"making sense" (Healy et al., 1982, p. 17). Finally, Healy et al. sum up the totality of the
comprehension deficit in these children:
The most remarkable finding, however, was that not one of these youngsters, having
correctly pronounced almost all o f the words in the text, could retell, summarize, or even relate any
information from the story. Isolated words and phrases were sometimes recalled, and often the title
was repeated in response to the question, "What was the story about?" Most frequently, responses
were unrelated to the textual meaning, and, on at least one occasion, drawn from a story read 1
month earlier (p. 17).
Beneath the obvious decoding talent these children possess, lies a serious deficit in their
comprehension abilities.
Snowling and Frith (1986) were the only investigators who studied comprehension in both
autistic and nonautistic hyperlexic children and used mentally handicapped children as a
comparison group. To assess children's use of context as an aid to comprehension, the authors
used 20 sentences with homographs in both their most frequent and less frequent forms. The
children were first given a pretest of words to read that included several homographs to see i f they
would use the most frequent form of these words. A l l the subjects were told during the pretesting
that each word had two possible meanings and pronunciations. Despite the pretest and the warning
the subjects continually used the high frequency homographs as compared to the less frequent
homographs. The authors concluded that these children with hyperlexia do not use context when
reading in order to disambiguate homographs.
In a second experiment, the same investigators examined i f these children understood
larger chunks of meaning by using story-appropriate and story-nonappropriate words. The
children were given a story to read in a modified cloze procedure, in which at varying intervals in
the text a blank was given along with three possible words to use for filling-in-the-blank. The
children were given instructions to fi l l in the blank by picking the word that made the most sense.
Practice was given until the children understood the task. The authors found that both autistic and
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 33
nonautistic hyperlexic children did not distinguish between story-appropriate (appropriate for both
sentence and story context) and sentence-appropriate words (appropriate only for the sentence
context but not for story context). Snowling and Frith (1986) concluded that these children were
not using the story context to choose the most appropriate word and therefore did not comprehend
the story.
In summary, reading comprehension in children with hyperlexia has frequently been found
to exist for single words and short concrete sentences. However, when reading paragraphs or short
stories and asked to recall them or answer questions about them, these children fail. Instead, when
children with hyperlexia are asked to recall a short passage they often relay only concrete,
intermittent pieces of the text accompanied with other unrelated, non-text material. With regard to
schema or prior knowledge, it thus far appears that children with hyperlexia do not use their own
prior knowledge to answer questions about text. Additionally, these children do not correct or
point out rather obvious errors that have been embedded in text. A possible conclusion in the area
of reading comprehension comes from Snowling and Frith (1986). These authors reported that the
ability to understand, in their participants with hyperlexia, was at a 5-year-level (on average)
which was vastly different compared to their ability to decode, which was at a 9-year-level (on
average). From this finding, Snowling and Frith suggested that "the results raise the possibility that
comprehension wi l l simply be as good as verbal ability allows it to be" (p. 396). However, these
same authors later concluded, "Hyperlexia implies a particular failure to comprehend in terms of
larger units of meaning, not accounted for by poor general language skills or poor word
knowledge" (p.410). It is precisely this type o f confusion that underlies the disorder of hyperlexia.
The need for more clarity regarding this comprehension deficit is evident, "the question of why the
true hyperlexic children's reading comprehension is so poor remains to be answered" (p. 410). It is
for this reason that my study wi l l further examine this perplexing comprehension deficit in these
children.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 34
Cognition and Memory
Long-term Memory and Schema
Definitions of Schema. Schema have been defined as knowledge structures stored in
memory (Anderson & Pearson, 1984; Rumelhart, 1980). Anderson et al. (1977) suggest that
schema is knowledge brought to the text as opposed to in-text knowledge. Furthermore, schema
are more important for understanding text than in-text knowledge (Anderson et al., 1977). Boblett
(1932) refers to schema as "an active organization of past reactions or past experience" (p. 201).
He saw schemata as an active process of organizing information and experiences (Boblett, 1932).
Rumelhart (1980) describes schema as "the building blocks of cognition" (p. 33). He believes that
all thought processing stems from schema which help organize and interpret information
(Rumelhart, 1980). He also describes schema as structures that represent various basic concepts
that are stored in memory (Rumelhart, 1980). According to Rumelhart and Ortony (1977) there are
four major characteristics of schema: (a) they have variables, (b) they can be embeded within one
another, (c) they represent knowledge, and (d) they are found at all levels of abstraction.
Furthermore, schema can represent all levels of knowledge; therefore, some schema are quite
large, while others are small.
Anderson and Pearson (1984) have explained how schema aid comprehension. According
to these authors, it is the interaction between new and old information that creates comprehension.
The new information is accommodated for in memory by the existing stored knowledge and they
combine to create a storage place for both new and old knowledge on a topic. Anderson et al.
(1977) described three types of schema that represent objects, events, and actions. A n example of a
schema for objects is a dog or a house, something concrete. Schema for events have also been
called scripts and describe everyday events, such as eating in a restaurant (Anderson et al., 1977).
Anderson (1994) defines schema as "organized knowledge of the world" (p. 469). He
explains that schema "provide much of the basis for comprehending, learning, and remembering
the ideas in stories and texts" (Anderson, 1994; p. 469). Anderson (1994) gives the example, "The
big number 37 smashed the ball over the fence" (p. 470). Most individuals with some knowledge
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 35
of baseball would find this statement easy to understand. This baseball player, number 37, really
hit the ball hard and it flew over the fence. However, for a person with no prior knowledge o f
baseball, this sentence would make little sense to them. Some people might imagine a big, metal
number 37 being hit by the baseball causing it to break and fall off the fence. It is quite incredible
how our schema or lack of it w i l l completely change the meaning of a passage.
How Schemata Aid in Comprehension. Schema or prior knowledge has consistently been
reported to aid in the comprehension process (Anderson et al., 1977; Anderson et al.,T978;
Bransford & Johnson, 1973; Langer & Nicol ich, 1981). In this section of the chapter, literature in
the area of schema or prior knowledge and its effects on the comprehension of text w i l l be
reviewed.
Schema have several functions (Anderson, 1994; Anderson, 1978; Anderson & Pichert,
1978) that include: (a) providing ideational scaffolding for assimilating text information; (b)
facilitating selective allocation of attention; (c) enabling inferential elaboration; (d) allowing
orderly searches of memory; (e) facilitating editing and summarizing; and (f) permitting
inferential reconstruction (Anderson, 1994; p. 473-474). These various functions come together to
aid the individual in comprehension of a text. In order to comprehend material, the reader needs to
assimilate the information, give their full attention, be able to make inferences about the text,
conduct memory searches, summarize and reconstruct the ideas in order to make sense o f the
material.
A study by Bransford and Johnson (1973) clearly demonstrated the strong role schema play
in comprehension of text. In this study, some of the participants received a title to a very vague
reading passage prior to reading it, other participants received it after reading it, and the remainder
of subjects did not get a title at all. Bransford and Johnson reported significant improvement in
comprehension in the participants who received the title of the passage prior to reading it since it
activated their schema for the topic. Conversely, the participants who received the title after
reading the passage did not gain anything in comprehension as compared to the no title group. The
authors concluded that prior knowledge is important in aiding in comprehension and the relevant
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 36
knowledge must be activated prior to processing for comprehension to occur.
Schema is also referred to as prior knowledge. In 1981, Langer and Nicol ich conducted a
study that examined the relationship between prior knowledge and comprehension. These authors
examined 36 high school students enrolled in an advanced English literature course. The
participants were tested on two passages for the amount of prior knowledge they had about each
topic. One passage was about schizophrenia and the other about parakeets. Prior to reading each
passage the students were asked to "write anything that comes to mind when you hear the word (or
phrase)..." (Langer & Nicol ich , 1981; p.374). Through using this task the examiners were trying to
access any knowledge about these topics from the student's memory. After reading each passage
the students were told to write down everything they could remember about the passage. Factor
analysis revealed that the level of prior knowledge was related to recall of the text. Correlations
between prior knowledge and the principal components for each passage were .75 and .70 for
schizophrenia and parakeet passages respectively. The findings suggested that the level of prior
knowledge is strongly related to recall of the passage.
Some studies have investigated prior knowledge in children with learning disabilities (LD)
and reported the importance of prior knowledge on comprehension of text (Carr & Thompson,
1996; Montague, Maddux, & Dereshiwsky, 1990; Snider, 1989). Despite the fact that many
studies with L D students report that they have less prior knowledge as compared to normal
readers, the studies have found that L D students do use these bits of prior knowledge to aid them in
the comprehension of text. Additionally, many researchers have been successful in helping
students with L D to activate prior knowledge and this has had a positive effect on their
comprehension of the text (Carr & Thompson, 1996; Snider, 1989). In 1989, Snider investigated
the effects of levels of prior knowledge and types of reading passages on comprehension in
junior-high students with L D . The author found that students with L D who were directly taught the
knowledge did better than the control group on the comprehension questions (Snider, 1989).
Additionally, Snider (1989) concluded that declarative knowledge had a positive and significant
impact on comprehension questions of all types.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 37
Similarly, Carr and Thompson (1996) investigated the effects of prior knowledge and
schema activation on reading comprehension in L D children. Forty-eight children in elementary
and middle school took part in this study. O f the 48 participants, 16 were L D students in grades 7
and 8, 16 were non-LD students in grade 8 and the remaining 16 were non-LD students in grade 5.
The non-LD children were both same age peers and reading level peers o f the L D children. The
participants were individually administered a pre-test that assessed decoding ability and prior
knowledge of the test topics. Each participant was given 16 passages, over two sessions, to read
and then comprehension questions to answer. After reading the passage silently, the examiner
asked the participant to "Tel l me what you remember about this story" (Carr & Thompson, 1996;
p. 52). After the student recalled the story, the examiner read five inferential comprehension
questions to the student who answered with an oral response. O f the 16 passages, 8 were familiar
topics and 8 were not familiar topics.
In the first session the students were expected to activate prior knowledge spontaneously
while in the second session the experimenter prompted the student. Prior knowledge was activated
by the examiner asking each student prior to the reading of each passage "Tel l me what you know
about..." (Carr & Thompson, 1996; p. 53). The authors reported that all three groups of children
benefited from the activation of prior knowledge by the examiner, especially when the passages
were unfamiliar. However, the L D students benefited most by the activation of prior knowledge.
Finally, Snowling and Frith (1986) have studied prior knowledge in children with
hyperlexia. These authors examined the use o f general knowledge and text knowledge in groups of
autistic and nonautistic hyperlexic children, normal children and mentally handicapped children.
They asked 32 comprehension questions, 16 in regard to a "Beaver story" and the other 16 about a
"Hedgehog story." The questions were of two types: (a) questions requiring the subject to
remember factual detail from the text, and (b) questions requiring general knowledge about these
topics. In the previous study, the investigators had informal discussions with the children about
animals and explained about a beaver and hedgehog for those who did not know. When examining
the results, the authors found that these retarded autistic and nonautistic hyperlexic children did
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 38
equally poorly on both types of questions. After comparing this group of children to 10 young
normal readers, the authors concluded that the autistic and nonautistic hyperlexic children
processed the text superficially and remembered very few isolated details.
This section of the chapter has reviewed the literature in the area of schema or prior
knowledge and its effects on comprehension. In most situations prior knowledge is found to
enhance comprehension of text. The strongest conclusion that comes from this section is that
children who have or use schema when reading text have improved comprehension for that text.
These children combine both prior knowledge and text knowledge in order to have a complete
understanding of what they are reading. Many of the investigations above have strongly shown
that without prior knowledge o f the topic they are reading, children do poorly on comprehension
questions compared to those children who have a strong prior knowledge of the topic.
Even studies on children with L D have shown that prior knowledge for a topic increases
their reading comprehension for that topic. The studies above suggest that activation of that prior
knowledge in children with L D strongly increased their comprehension for the task. This strongly
suggests that children with hyperlexia may also have some schemata for particular topics that
when activated would increase their comprehension of the topic. This is a question that w i l l be
addressed in my research study.
Metacognition and Strategy Use
Definitions. Metacognition is defined as cognition about cognition. It involves thinking
about the various processes o f cognition such as perceiving, understanding, and remembering
(Garner, 1987). First, metacognition refers to awareness of one's cognitive processes, your
strengths and weakness, and how well the fit is between the cognitive task and your cognitive
resources. Second, it refers to self-regulation, or regulating your own comprehension (Flavell,
1978). Metacognition has been defined by Flavell (1979) as "knowledge and cognition about
cognitive phenomena" (p. 906). He further described that metacognition plays important roles in
oral communication, oral and reading comprehension, writing, language acquisition, memory and
attention. Metacognition is broken into various components, such as metacognitive knowledge,
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 39
metacognitive experiences, and strategies (Flavell, 1981). Each of these processes is a subordinate
component of metacognition. Metacognitive knowledge is knowledge about people, tasks and
strategies. Strategies are the employment o f cognitive and metacognitive resources in order to
remedy any possible cognitive failure (Garner, 1994).
In their 1982 article, Paris and Lindauer described the concept of metacognition as
"knowledge we have about people's mental states, abilities, and processes of behavioral regulation.
It includes our understanding of task goals and the strategies that are useful for accomplishing
different purposes" (p. 334). Metacognition involves information that is conscious and deliberate.
For example, "I had better reread this paragraph to understand the author's point" (Paris &
Lindauer, 1982; p. 334). This example clearly shows the executive control process o f
metacognition and the conscious strategizing that is a part of it. Executive control processes direct
activities at various stages in processing and make certain that the system functions as a whole
throughout all the processing stages (Garner, 1987). In her 1977 article, Brown stressed the
importance o f executive control processes "in the domain o f deliberate learning and
problem-solving situations, conscious executive control o f the routines available to the system is
the essence of intelligent activity" (p. 4).
Additionally, Brown (1980) investigated metacognition during reading tasks and how
using metacognitive strategies can improve learning and comprehension. The author discussed
several important strategic components for effective reading: (a) making predictions about the
text, (b) checking predictions, (c) monitoring comprehension, (d) reality testing, and (e)
controlling attempts to learn a task (Brown, 1980). These strategies have been vastly researched
over the years and have brought much insight into important differences between good and poor
readers metacognitive abilities (Garner, 1980; Garner & Reis, 1981; Garner & Taylor, 1982; Paris
& Myers, 1981; Wong & Jones, 1982). Strategies such as the ones described above often differ
with the age of the individual. Unti l recently, researchers assumed that older children and adults
are more likely to use self-regulatory strategies when learning as compared to younger children
(Baker & Brown, 1984). However, recent studies have shown that preschool children and children
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 40
in grade one do use metacognitive strategies when learning (Neuman, 1997; Perry, 1998; Turner,
1995; Winne, 1997).
Skilled readers use strategies, such as comprehension monitoring, when reading, to ensure
comprehension of the text. Paris, Lipson and Wixon (1983) discussed metacognition in terms of
these strategies for reading. According to these authors knowledge about reading is categorized in
three ways: (a) declarative knowledge, (b) procedural knowledge, and (c) conditional knowledge.
Declarative knowledge is understanding "what" factors, for example, help reading comprehension.
This type of knowledge includes beliefs about one's abilities and beliefs about the task. A s an
example, a child may see himself as a slow reader and may consider a particular reading task
difficult or boring. Procedural knowledge is knowing "how." For example, knowing how to use
particular skills to support learning. This type o f knowledge includes knowing how to perform
certain strategies, such as skimming, scanning, and summarizing. Finally, conditional knowledge
is knowing "when" and "why." For example, knowing when to use certain strategies and why they
are affective. Conditional knowledge is linked to motivation (e.g., Knowing why I should use a
particular strategy - because it w i l l improve my score on a test - motivating me to use it). Paris et
al. suggest that "strategies combine components o f both skill and w i l l " (p. 798). This means that
motivational aspects of metacognition are important for the child to accomplish a goal. Children
need to have intent to pursue knowledge and to behave in a particular manner. Motivational
aspects of learning are important incentives that give energy to the system that then direct the
children's behavior.
A model of metacognition for L D children comes from Pressley, Borkowski, and
O'Sullivan (1985). This model consists of several components: specific strategy knowledge,
general strategy knowledge, relational strategy knowledge, and metamemory acquisition
procedures. Specific strategy knowledge includes an understanding of (a) a strategy's goals and
objectives, (b) the appropriate tasks to use this strategy for, (c) its range of applicability, (d) the
learning gains expected from consistent use of the strategy, (e) the amount of effort associated with
it's use, and (f) i f the strategy is enjoyable or difficult to use (Borkowski, Johnston, & Reid, 1987).
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 41
Specific strategy knowledge is needed for efficient strategy use. Once the child has a number o f
strategies and knowledge of how to use them, they can make informed decisions on which strategy
is best for which task. Specific strategy knowledge is not stagnant, it changes over time and
accumulates slowly as the child matures.
General strategy knowledge is a child's understanding that it requires effort to apply these
strategies and that this effort usually leads to success (Borkowski et al., 1987). Motivation is linked
to general strategy knowledge because as the child experiences the success from strategy use, they
are more motivated to learn new and challenging tasks. Relational strategy knowledge is a type of
classification system that highlights various aspects o f specific strategies and helps the child to
select which strategy would be the best for the task at hand (Pressley et al., 1985). According to
Borkowski et al., there is not much known about relational strategy knowledge in normal or L D
children. The final component of the model, metamemory acquisition procedures ( M A P S ) , are the
higher order components of metamemory and are important in the self-regulation of human
behavior (Brown, 1978). They produce self-control in young and L D children (Pressley et al.,
1985). Finally, the authors of the model suggest that all these characteristics are required for a
normal, L D , or mentally retarded child to be able to transfer strategies successfully (Pressley et al.,
1985).
In summary, metacognition is an executive control process that consists o f higher order
thinking. It is described best as thinking about our thinking. Metacognition consists of person,
task, and strategy variables that describe what the child knows about his/her own learning abilities,
what is known about the task (is it hard or easy?), and what strategies would be best to help him/her
learn most efficiently. Finally, metacognitive thinkers are strategic learners who employ various
strategies to aid their comprehension processes.
How Metacognition Aids Comprehension. A s discussed above, metacognition involves
knowing how and when to use certain strategies in order to be successful at a reading task. Wong
(1991) explained that successful learners need to have an awareness of their own cognitive
strengths and weaknesses in order to select appropriate strategies for learning. Metacognition is,
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 42
therefore, necessary not only to effectively choose the appropriate strategy, but also to deploy it
and to evaluate it's usefulness (Wong, 1996). Many studies have examined comprehension in good
and poor readers and have reported that good comprehenders are more likely to use
comprehension monitoring strategies when they are reading than poor comprehenders (Garner,
1980; Garner & Taylor, 1982; Paris & Myers, 1981). Children who read for meaning are
essentially trying to comprehend the material. However, in order to comprehend the material,
children need to use metacognitive strategies, such as comprehension monitoring (Baker &
Brown, 1984). Wagoner (1983) describes comprehension monitoring as "an executive function,
essential for competent reading, which directs the readers cognitive process as he/she strives to
make sense of the incoming information" (p. 328). Nonstrategic readers have been found to read as
i f on auto-pilot and are not even aware of any comprehension difficulties (Paris, Wasik, & Turner,
1991). This section of Chapter 2 wi l l examine the literature on metacognition and learning
strategies in poor and good comprehenders.
Comprehension monitoring has been investigated in both good and poor readers (Garner,
1980; Garner & Taylor, 1982). In both studies, good readers and poor readers from grades 4
through 7 were given altered passages from expository texts to read. These passages were changed
so that they contained several inconsistencies and no longer made any sense. After reading each
section, the child had to choose i f the section was "very easy to understand", i f the section "was
okay", or i f the section "was difficult to understand." Garner (1980) reported that good readers
rated most of the consistent-information sections as "very easy to understand" and the
inconsistent-information as either "okay" or "difficult to understand." In contrast, Garner and
Taylor (1982) reported that many o f their poor comprehenders never mentioned the internal
inconsistencies in the texts. Instead, the poor readers gave comments such as, "The story makes
good sense" and "There is no problem with this story" (Garner & Taylor, 1982; p. 4).
Similarly, Paris and Myers (1981) examined comprehension monitoring in good and poor
fourth grade children. The authors examined the frequency o f monitoring in both spontaneous and
directed conditions. To test for the spontaneous monitoring the authors asked the children to read
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 43
two stories that contained nonsense words and nonsense phrases and their hesitations, repetitions
and self-corrections were recorded. In the directed condition, the children were told that parts of
the story may not make sense and that they should underline and words or phrases that they did not
understand. After the children read the stories they were asked to recall as much of the story as
they could. The authors prompted the recall of the story by giving the children the title o f the story.
Paris and Myers (1981) found that in comparison to good readers, the poor readers did not engage
in accurate monitoring as frequently and they did not evaluate information that they did not
understand. Finally, the poor readers showed less accurate recall and less comprehension of the
stories compared to the good readers (Paris & Myers, 1981).
In a second experiment, the authors examined the strategic behaviors o f both poor and
good readers with regard to obtaining meaning from difficult vocabulary words. The.participants
were 14 good and poor fourth grade readers. Grade four level reading passages were transformed
to contain several difficult vocabulary words that were judged to be above fourth grade readers
level ("e.g., anther, papaya, meandered, menageria") (Paris & Myers, 1981; p. 14). The children
were given the story and told to read it so they could remember it later. They were also given
pencil, paper, and dictionary and told that they could use to help them remember the story. After
the children completed the story they were given a short addition task and then they were asked to
verbally recall the story. Results of the study indicated that 79% o f good readers and 29% of poor
readers used a study strategy for understanding the difficult words (Paris & Myers, 1981).
Additionally, six o f the good readers used the dictionary to look up difficult words whereas none
of the poor readers did (Paris & Myers, 1981). Five good readers and only two poor readers used
the paper and pencil to write things down to help them remember the story. Good readers were
found to use more spontaneous monitoring strategies than poor readers (Paris & Myers, 1981). In
terms of recall, poor readers were able to remember less of the stories compared to the good
readers and showed more forgetting and less organized recall (Paris & Myers, 1981). The authors
concluded that the difference in the reading performance and recall of the students was
significantly correlated to the use of successful comprehension monitoring strategies (Paris &
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 44
Myers, 1981).
Metacognition has been assessed in various ways, including comprehension monitoring
(Garner, 1980; Garner & Taylor, 1982; Paris & Myers, 1981), lookback strategies (Garner et al.,
1983; Kinnunen & Vauras, 1995), and interview formats (Garner & Kraus, 1982). In a more recent
investigation, Kinnunen and Vauras (1995) examined comprehension monitoring in good and
poor fourth grade readers. In this study, the authors assessed the changes in reading time and the
number of lookbacks children had when confronted with comprehension obstacles. The children
were given six reading passages in which one of the three paragraphs was always consistent while
the other two included one word (either a nonsense word, or a word that made no sense) designed
to provoke comprehension monitoring. Therefore, the children read 18 paragraphs, six being
consistent and 12 having comprehension obstacles embedded in them. During the experiment the
participants were instructed to read and learn the passages in the way they normally do when they
are doing their homework and that they would be asked questions about the passages after their
studying. The authors reported that high achieving readers read the passages faster than low
achieving readers and used more comprehension monitoring strategies as compared to the low
achieving readers. A s expected the good readers scored higher on the comprehension questions as
compared to the poor readers. The authors concluded that both level o f monitoring and level of
comprehension are related, which explains the differences between good and poor comprehenders
(Kinnunen & Vauras, 1995).
Metacognition has also been examined in children with Learning Disabilities (LD) . Wong
and Wong (1986) investigated metacognition in above average, average, and L D readers. These
students were examined for their awareness of difficult vocabulary and disorganized prose. Four
reading passages were used in which two of them contained difficult vocabulary and two of them
contained relatively easy vocabulary. Two other passages were used in which the text was either
organized and logically sequenced or disorganized and not logical. The children were asked
questions about hypothetical students who read the passages in order to assess their metacognitive
knowledge. Several weeks later, the children were randomly assigned to receive either the hard or
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 45
easy vocabulary passage-pairs first, followed by the organized or disorganized passage-pair. The
children were told to study the passages for subsequent recall. The children's study times were
recorded and their recall was tape-recorded and later transcribed. The authors found that
above-average readers were substantially more aware that the level of vocabulary difficulty and
passage organization affect the ease of studying a passage (Wong & Wong, 1986). L D readers
showed the same metacognitive awareness as the above-average readers but at a substantially
lower level (Wong & Wong, 1986). The L D children were able to explain that the disorganized
passage would take longer to study because it was harder to learn and remember. The authors
concluded that these findings challenged the assumption that L D children are metacognitively
deficient (Wong, 1991).
In summary, the studies above have shown that metacognition aids comprehension through
giving children the higher level thinking needed to evaluate and monitor their own reading
comprehension. The propbnderance of studies have shown that both young children and children
with L D do have and use metacognitive skills while reading. However, these children are not as
adaptive at using these skills compared to older readers and non-LD students. A s we have seen,
children who are good comprehenders tend to apply more metacognitive strategies, such as
monitoring their comprehension or looking back at the text when they don't understand or when
they need to find an answer to a question. We have also seen that children who are good
comprehenders focus more on meaning and comprehension and use various learning strategies to
achieve their reading goals. The studies above clearly provide evidence that without metacognition
and strategies, children have lower levels of reading comprehension and hence are less successful
learners.
Strategy Use and Metacognition. Many studies over the years have shown the connection
between metacognition and strategy use and that fostering awareness of this leads to improved
strategy use and improved reading comprehension (Cross & Paris, 1988; Paris, Cross, & Lipson,
1984; Paris & Jacobs, 1984; Paris, Sarnio, & Cross, 1986; Paris & Oka, 1986). Strategic reading
requires ongoing monitoring and evaluation of one's comprehension in order to achieve the goals
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 46
of reading (Paris, Lipson, & Wixon , 1983). Children's awareness about the reading process and
strategy use is a very important part of reading (Baker & Brown, 1984; Paris & Oka, 1986).
Therefore, it is a logical assumption that an increase in children's awareness of and use o f
strategies would improve reading comprehension.
Paris, Cross, and Lipson (1984) designed an instruction package called "Informed
Strategies for Learning" or ISL. The goal of ISL is to stimulate and increase children's awareness
of declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge, as well as teaching them ways to evaluate,
plan and regulate their own comprehension (Paris et al., 1984). ISL includes various features of
direct instruction, such as "(a) directing children's attention to the material to be learned, (b)
generating high levels o f student involvement, and (c) providing frequent practice and immediate
feedback" (Paris et al., 1984; p. 1241). ISL teaches a wide variety of comprehension strategies that
have been tested in previous reading studies. Some fundamental comprehension strategies, such as
"understanding the purpose of reading, activating relevant background knowledge, allocating
attention to main ideas, critical evaluation, monitoring comprehension, and drawing inferences"
are taught as a part of this package (Paris et al., 1984; p. 1241).
In a study that examined strategy use and metacognition in children, Paris and Oka (1986)
compared 500 third-graders and 500 fifth-graders that received strategy instruction to 600
same-aged peers who received no instruction. The authors gave numerous pre-tests to assess the
children's comprehension level and their use o f strategies in learning. Cloze tasks, error detection
tasks and reading awareness measures were given to children prior to the experimental treatment
(in the fall) and subsequent to the treatment (in the spring). The authors reported that the strategic
training facilitated the children's use of comprehension strategies as well as promoted
comprehension (Paris & Oka, 1986). Children who had the strategy training scored significantly
higher on comprehension tests as well as error detection tasks compared to the control group (Paris
& Oka, 1986). The children in the experimental group had significantly increased awareness about
reading and were able to describe various strategies and cognitive processes that influence reading
comprehension (Paris & Oka, 1986). Additionally, children who were considered skilled readers
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 47
were clearly distinguishable from their less skilled counterparts on the basis of greater
metacognitive knowledge about reading and higher motivation (Paris & Oka, 1986). However, all
children, regardless of skill level improved in their metacognitive abilities and comprehension
skills (Paris & Oka, 1986).
Recent investigations (Neuman, 1997; Turner, 1995; Perry, 1998; Winne, 1997) have
shown that even very young children, preschoolers and grade one children, use metacognitive
strategies in order to reach a specified goal. In her study o f grade one children, Turner (1995)
examined literacy instruction and its effects on children's motivation for literacy. The study
examined 84 grade one children in either basal classroom or whole language classrooms.
Observers recorded both the type of literacy activity (opened and child-directed, or closed and
teacher-directed) and the children's voluntary use o f motivational behaviors (strategies,
persistence, and attention control). Additionally, the children were interviewed about the purposes
of literacy in a four-question, open-ended interview. Turner (1995) found that open activities
promoted the use of learning strategies, such as rehearsal, self-monitoring, elaboration and
planning. Interviews provided evidence that children in whole-language classrooms using open
activities had a better understanding of the purposes of literacy compared to students in classrooms
where literacy instruction isolated skills for instruction (Turner, 1995). This study clearly shows
that very young children do use strategies when reading, particularly when they are in classrooms
that encourage open, child-directed learning.
Successful learners are metacognitive thinkers, who use strategies to learn and who have
self-regulated learning behaviors. Self-regulated learning (SRL) is used to describe children who
are intrinsically motivated and regulate their own learning via metacognition and strategy use
(Zimmerman, 1990). Children high in S R L classrooms are active, persistent learners who are
aware of what they know and i f they know how to achieve a goal. Recent studies have shown that
children can be self-regulated at a very young age (Perry, 1998; Winne, 1997). In her study of 94
grade 2 and 3 students, Perry (1998) examined children's writing arid portfolio activities in both
high- and low-SRL classrooms. Perry used observation and questionnaires to assess children's
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 48
beliefs and expectations about writing, their perception of control and support, and their regulation
of writing behavior (Perry, 1998). The results of her study indicated that children in high-SRL
classrooms were more likely to approach tasks metacognitively and strategically. In comparison,
children in the l o w - S R L classrooms were more dependent on the teacher for learning and some
adopted defensive and self-handicapping approaches to learning (i.e., procrastinating, giving up)
(Perry, 1998).
The studies above have shown that children, at a very young age, can be strategic, active
learners. Very young children have been found to use various strategies, such as rehearsal,
self-monitoring, elaboration, and planning. It is also clear, contrary to what researchers found in
the past (Myers & Paris, 1978), that young children do have metacognitive abilities and do use
them in various literacy tasks. Additionally, children, even very young children, do use strategies
for learning. It has also been proven that children at a very young age can be self-regulated learners
in a classroom environment that nurtures S R L .
Motivation and Interest
There have been a number of studies over the years that have addressed how motivation
and interest lead to improved strategy use and therefore, increased comprehension and learning
(Hidi , 1990; Schiefele, 1991; Tobias, 1994). Paris et al. (1991) have suggested that, in reading,
cognitive tactics (planning, monitoring, elaborating) are combined with executive control
strategies for managing time and attention. Motivation plays an important role in learning because
it mediates both the amount of effort put into a task and the amount of satisfaction the child gets
from reading. Therefore, readers need both knowledge and motivation in order to use various
cognitive strategies. Paris et al. (1983) describe reading strategies as consisting of "both skill and
w i l l " (p. 304). Increasing a child's feelings of self-efficacy, such as their feeling competent in using
a strategy, leads to an increase in motivation (Palmer & Goetz, 1988). High interest in a topic has
also been shown to increase motivation for learning (Hidi , 1990). Clearly, motivation is an
important variable that is needed for a child to behave strategically and hence improve their
comprehension of the material being read.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 49
Interest is one way of increasing motivation for a task. High interest in an activity creates
intrinsic motivation that leads to more effortful behavior and increased strategy use. Various
studies have reported that high interest in a topic leads to better comprehension and recall (Asher,
1979; De Sousa & Oakhil l , 1996; Hid i , 1990; Shirey & Reynolds, 1988). In a study that
investigated the effects of interest and prior knowledge on reading comprehension, Baldwin,
Peleg-Bruckner, and McClintock (1985) tested 41 seventh- and eighth-grade students. Prior to the
experiment, the students completed a 10-item interest inventory and took a 100-item prior
knowledge test. After completing these, each participant read passages that contained various
combinations of high and low prior knowledge and high and low topic interest. The authors found
interesting results in that boys scored higher in comprehension when interest or prior knowledge
was high, as well as when both interest and prior knowledge were high (Baldwin et al., 1985).
However, for the girls, comprehension was significantly higher on passages with high prior
knowledge, but not in passages with high interest topic (Baldwin et al., 1985). The authors
concluded that the impact of topic interest on comprehension was greater for boys while the
impact of prior knowledge was greater for girls (Baldwin et al., 1985).
In conclusion, motivation plays a very important role in reading comprehension and using
strategic behaviors while reading. Motivating students to use strategies that w i l l help increase their
reading comprehension can be achieved in various ways, such as helping the child to feel
successful at a task. Additionally, interest in the reading material has been found to increase
children's motivation for learning. Prior studies have clearly demonstrated that high-interest in a
text can improve reading comprehension for that text. It is for this reason that this investigation
wi l l examine the effects of high-interest o f reading material on reading comprehension in children
with hyperlexia.
Summary 3
A review o f the literature describing hyperlexia and comprehension in children with
hyperlexia along with aspects of cognition and memory, such as attention, motivation, interest,
schema, metacognition and strategy use has been presented. Prior research has not been conclusive
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 50
regarding the intensity and nature of the comprehension deficit in children with hyperlexia.
Although some investigations have found that children with hyperlexia have adequate reading
comprehension as could be expected from their cognitive ability, others describe a much more
severe deficiency. Prior studies have not thoroughly examined reading comprehension in regard to
cognition and memory, attention, motivation, interest, schema, metacognition and strategy use.
Since these aspects of memory and cognition are so important to comprehension and learning, it is
therefore important to examine these traits in children with hyperlexia.
Studies in the area of cognition and memory have clearly shown the effects that prior
knowledge/schema can have on reading comprehension. Children who have prior knowledge
about a topic perform better on comprehension tests than children with no prior knowledge.
Additionally, studies on metacognition in children have shown that children as young as preschool
use metacognitive thinking when performing tasks. Similarly, children in gradel have shown use
of strategies, such as rehearsal and cognitive monitoring. It is clear that children both have and use
metacognitive strategies and thinking. A s well , it is well documented that children who use
metacognitive strategies perform better on comprehension tasks than children who use no
strategies.
Additionally, attention, motivation and interest have strong effects on reading
comprehension. Children, when motivated to learn, use more effective strategies, such as
comprehension monitoring. The increase in strategy use leads to an increase in comprehension of
the text. High-interest in a text has also been found to increase motivation and hence increase
strategy use and comprehension. Children, when given high-interest texts and low-interest texts,
perform better on recall and comprehension tasks for the text of high-interest.
In conclusion, the nature and severity of the comprehension deficit in children with
hyperlexia is yet to be determined. In order to understand the deficit, one must examine all aspects
of reading comprehension including schema, interest, metacognition and strategy use. A n in-depth
examination of all these areas of reading comprehension should give us more insight into the true
nature of the comprehension deficit in children with hyperlexia.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 51
CHAPTER III
Method
Design
This study used a multiple and contrasting case study design and was conducted in two
phases. There were four participants, two with hyperlexia and two with mild intellectual delays
(MID) and each was assessed using multiple measures for testing word recognition and decoding,
reading comprehension, prior knowledge, metacognition, strategy use and interest. The purpose of
Phase 1 was to confirm the participants met the classification criteria for selection in this study.
For the students with hyperlexia these criteria included: (a) early and spontaneous word
recognition prior to the age of 5 years, (b) both language and cognitive delays, and (c) word
recognition that exceeds what would be expected given other cognitive and linguistic functions.
Students with M I D were selected to match students with hyperlexia on the basis of age, grade and
cognitive ability. In Phase 1, the children completed the PPVT-III in order to assess receptive
language; the Wide Range Achievement Test-Ill ( W R A T 3) to determine word-reading ability; a
pseudoword reading task, the Woodcock Johnson Word Attack (Goldman, Fristoe, & Woodcock,
1974) to determine decoding abilities; and the reading subtest of the brief form of the Kaufman
Test of Educational Achievement ( K - T E A ) as a standardized measure of reading comprehension.
The purpose o f Phase 2 was to answer the questions posed in this study. In Phase 2, the children
completed several tasks that assessed how prior knowledge, metacognition, strategy use, and
interest effect reading comprehension.
The multiple case study is a much stronger design compared to a single-case study. Often,
single-case studies are criticized because their findings are difficult to generalize or replicate.
However, a multiple case study allows for both generalization and replication over several
participants. Additionally, by employing a contrasting case design, stronger conclusions can be
drawn with regard to the uniqueness of the comprehension deficit in children with hyperlexia. This
study wi l l suggest possible interventions for children with hyperlexia that may help them to
improve their reading comprehension and learning.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 52
Participants
Two children with hyperlexia between the ages of 7 to 9 with full-scale IQ scores between
50 through 70 and two children with M I D matched with the hyperlexic children for age, grade and
IQ participated in this study. These children were attending a large suburban school district in
Western Canada.
A l l participants were required to have previously recorded intelligence testing on file at the
school, since the experimenter was not qualified to administer intelligence tests. The participants
were selected through district/teacher nomination. The participants with hyperlexia were chosen
according to the operational definition of hyperlexia given in the first chapter of this thesis (i.e.,
early and spontaneous word recognition prior to the age of 5 years, as reported by the parents; both
language and cognitive delays; IQ in the mild to moderately retarded range; and word recognition
far in advance of their other cognitive and linguistic functions). The participants with M I D were
selected as matches for the two children with hyperlexia based on their age, IQ, and grade.
Preliminary discussions with school district representatives confirmed that all criteria could be
met.
Informed consent was obtained from the parents/guardians of each child who participated
in this study. A parental consent form (see Appendix A ) was sent to each family, describing: (a)
what was involved in participating in the study, (b) any potential benefits or concerns, (c)
voluntary participation, and (d) confidentiality. Additionally, an informal interview conducted by
the investigator was performed with each set of parents, either by phone or in person, to find out
special interests o f each child and knowledge about particular reading topics.
Phase 1 Measures
Two measures were used to assess children's word recognition and decoding skills, the
W R A T 3 and the Woodcock Johnson Word Attack, a pseudoword reading task. Receptive
language was assessed with the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Additionally, the reading
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 53
subtest of the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement, brief form, was administered as a
standardized measure of reading comprehension.
Wide Range Achievement Test 3 (WRA T3). The W R A T 3 (Wide Range Achievement Test)
(Jastak & Jastak, 1978) is a test of word reading ability that consists of letter recognition, letter
naming, and reading words in isolation. The entire subtest is displayed on one sheet of paper o f
which there are two alternate forms. Form A was used for all participants in this study. There are
two subsections; one is letter reading and the other word reading. The words at the beginning of the
list are quite simple and gradually get more difficult as the test progresses. The W R A T 3 is used
specifically for assessing decoding skills.
According to the W R A T 3 Testing Manual (Wilkinson, 1993), the W R A T 3 has excellent
internal consistency and test-retest reliability. The corrected stability coefficients range from .91 to
.98 for all subtests. Additionally, the coefficient alpha for the combined reading test for ages 7 to
11 years ranges from .94 to .95. For Form A of the reading test the coefficient alpha for the same
age range is .89 to .91. The W R A T 3 has excellent content as well as construct validity (Wilkinson,
1993). Each test of the W R A T 3 scored a 1.00 on the Rasch statistic of item separation, which
gives strong evidence for content validity on each measure.
O f the two possible subtests for the reading section, letter reading and word reading, the
former section consists of 15 letters with a maximum of 15 points and the latter has a maximum of
57 points that can be earned on either Form A or B . One point is given for each correct letter and/or
word read. The combined form has a maximum of 99 points. Raw scores were converted to age
and grade equivalent scores.
Woodcock Johnson Word Attack (WJWA). A l l participants completed the Woodcock
Johnson pseudo-word reading task (Woodcock, 1973). This task consisted of reading non-words
of increasing complexity and provided another example of the participants decoding and
phonological skills. The initial items required participants to produce the sounds for single letters.
The remaining items required participants to read aloud letter combinations that were phonetically
consistent (i.e., regular) patterns in English orthography but were pseudowords. The test retest
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 54
reliability for the age range of 5 to 19 years is .77.
Each correct response given was scored as 1 and each incorrect response as 0. Words that
were not read fluently were scored as incorrect. Participants were not penalized for any
mispronunciations resulting from articulation errors, dialect variations, or regional speech
patterns. The number of items answered correctly were recorded for the raw score. Raw scores
were then translated into age or grade equivalent scores.
Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Third Edition (PPVT-III). A l l participants completed
the PPVT-III (Dunn and Dunn, 1997) as a standardized measure o f their receptive language
abilities. The PPVT-III is a widely used test that is easy to use and requires no oral or written
responses. The PPVT-III has two parallel forms, Form III A and Form IIIB. Form IIIA was used for
this study. Each form contains four training items and 204 test items grouped into 17 sets of 12
items each. The items are arranged in order of increasing difficulty. Each item consists of four
black-and-white pictures arranged on a page. The test taker is asked to select the picture that best
represents the meaning o f the stimulus word presented orally by the examiner. Testing time
averages only 11 to 12 minutes since most individuals only respond to five sets, or 60 items.
The PPVT-III was standardized nationally on a stratified sample of 2,725 persons in the
U.S . , 2,000 children and adolescents and 725 adults. Raw scores can be converted to
age-referenced normative scores, such as standard scores, percentiles, stanines, normal curve
equivalents, and age equivalents.
Four types of reliability were computed for the PPVT-III . Both alpha reliability and
split-half reliability were used for internal consistency. Additionally, alternate-forms reliability
and test-retest reliability data was also collected. The alternate-forms reliability coefficient
computed from standard scores range from .88 to .99 with a median value of .94, and the
coefficients computed from raw scores range from .89 to .99 with a median value of .95.
Alpha coefficients were computed as an additional measure o f internal consistency. The
alpha reliability coefficients ranged from .92 to .98 with a median value of .95 for both forms.
Split-half reliability coefficients ranged from .86 to .97 with a median value o f .94 for both forms.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 55
Finally, test-retest reliability scores ranged in the .90s.
Scoring is accomplished by adding up the number of errors for a total number o f errors
score and then calculating the raw score. A raw score is calculated by taking the total number o f
errors and subtracting them from the ceiling item. The ceiling item occurs when the participant has
5 consecutive errors within a set.
Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement (K-TEA). The K - T E A is an achievement test
used frequently by the participants' school district to assess achievement in reading, mathematics,
and spelling. There are two forms of the K - T E A , the brief form and the comprehensive form. For
the purpose of this study, only the reading subtest of the brief form was used. The reading subtest
starts at the grade 1 level and goes to grade 12. The first number items on the K - T E A requires the
participant to read aloud the letters presented to them. The next number items are followed by
words. Finally, the items require the participant to read directions and act out particular directions,
such as, "drink water."
The K - T E A has a split-half reliability coefficients for grades 2 and 3 of .97 and .90
respectively, for the brief form. Additionally, the test-retest reliability for grades 1 through 6 was
.84 for the reading section. The standard error for grades 2 and 3 are 2.7 and 4.8, respectively.
Phase 2 Measures
Children completed error detection and self-correction tasks as measures of their ability to
monitor their comprehension. They also read passages that contained relatively low knowledge
and high knowledge content, as well as relatively low and high interest content. They answered
questions to assess how prior knowledge and interest influenced their comprehension
performance. Finally, for all passages, children were asked to rate their understanding, as a
measure o f their ability to evaluate their comprehension, self-monitoring and self-evaluation are
important aspects of metacognition. A l l passages were similar in length and difficulty for each
pair, and had similar questions asked regarding the passage content.
Error detection. Comprehension monitoring is a form of metacognition, thus, the ability to
detect errors provides evidence o f comprehension monitoring (Garner, 1987). Therefore, this
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 56
study used an error detection task to measure students' monitoring of reading comprehension. The
children were asked to read two passages with errors embedded in them. One of the passages
contained more obvious errors, such as symbols (ex., *%$) embedded in the middle of words (see
Appendix B & C) . The second passage contained pseudowords, making the passage impossible to
comprehend (see Appendix D & E). The two types of errors were used in order to determine the
level of comprehension monitoring in both groups of children. It was predicted that children with
M I D would find more errors overall and that participants with hyperlexia would recognize the
symbol errors more easily than pseudoword errors, since it would be impossible for them to
decode these errors. In previous studies, children with hyperlexia have not treated pseudo-words
any differently than real words. Therefore, this task was used to force their recognition of the
errors to observe how they coped with them.
Upon completion of the passage, the children were given several comprehension questions
consisting of passage dependent and independent questions. Passage dependent questions
contained answers found directly in the text. Passage independent questions did not contain
answers found directly in the text but rather required the use of prior knowledge and inference.
Scoring for the error detection task consisted of the number of errors recognized over total number
of embedded errors.
Following the comprehension questions, the children were asked to rate the passage as (a)
"easy", (b) "a bit difficult, but ok", or (c) "hard, it didn't make sense" (see Appendix F). These
choices were printed on a sheet of paper with pictures of bunnies acting out each level o f
understanding. If, after reading a passage, the participant decided that it was easy to understand,
the experimenter asked whether there was anything difficult or confusing about it. If the
participant answered "no", the experimenter directed the child's attention to an error and asked
"What does this word mean?" and recorded the child's answers.
Participants were trained to use the simple rating scale aimed at assessing their
self-evaluations of reading comprehension. Each child was given a sheet that asked practice
questions with congruent answers, such as "Is riding your bike up a very big h i l l . . .(a) easy, (b) a
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 57
bit difficult, okay, or (c) hard?" and were then asked to point to the multiple-choice answer. A
measure of congruency between the questions asked and the children's response was computed for
the rating scale as a measure of reliability (see Appendix F). This congruency measure was used to
demonstrate the students' ability to self-evaluate (i.e., how accurate is their assessment o f their
performance?) Congruency is a construct borrowed from informal reading inventories, such as
Manzo, Manzo, and McKenna (1995). It is a measure o f the degree to which students' responses to
a question are congruent with the information asked in the question. A n incongruent response
supplies information that is not relevant and suggests that the student has failed to understand or
attend to the question topic. The congruency measure was scored as 1 for congruent or 0 for
non-congruent responses. Table 1 shows congruent and non-congruent responses for the
metacognitive rating scale and practice questions across all participants.
• A l l participants' responses to the practice questions for the error detection ratings were
congruent. Students with M I D ' s responses to the self-evaluation questions for the error detection
tasks were congruent. In contrast, students with hyperlexia achieved a low level of congruency
with regard to their judgements about the difficulty of the error detection passages. They judged
that the passages were not difficult when a more reasonable response would be that the passages
were difficult because they contained words that were either undecodable, not meaningful, or very
difficult to read and understand.
Self-Correction Task. The participants with hyperlexia were given a passage containing
very difficult vocabulary and irregular words so they would have opportunities to self-regulate
their reading and comprehension (see Appendix G). The students with M I D were not given this
passage since it was much too difficult for them to read. The passage was taken from a text and was
altered by adding extremely challenging vocabulary and irregular words into the paragraphs. After
the participant read the passage, he was given both comprehension questions assessing passage
dependent and independent knowledge, as well as the same rating scale described in the error
detection task (see Appendix F). The same measure of reliability was used to indicate i f the
responses to the questions were congruent or non-congruent.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 58
Table 1
Congruent vs. Non-congruent Responses for Rating Scale
Hyperlexia M I D Hyperlexia M I D
Assessment Bob Harvey Myles Nelson
Practice 1 1 1 1
E D #1 (symbols) 0 1 0 1 r
E D #2 (nonwords) 0 1 0 1
Self-Correction 0 0
L o w P . K . 0 1 0 1
Low Interest 0 1 0 1
High P . K . 0 1 0 1
High Interest 1 1 1 1
Note. ED = error detection, P.K. = prior knowledge, 1 = congruent response, 0 = non-congruent response.
Bob's responses to the rating scale questions for the self-correction task were non-
congruent. Myles also had non-congruent responses to the rating scale for the self-correction task.
Both students with hyperlexia judged the passage to be easy when in fact it was very difficult for
them to read and understand (see Table 1).
Scoring for the self-correction followed standard scoring procedures for scoring informal
reading inventories. A n accuracy score was calculated, percentage o f all words read accurately.
Additionally, an error analysis was completed to look for patterns such as decoding errors and
non-meaningful substitutions.
Tests for Schema/Prior Knowledge. This task was designed to assess whether children with
hyperlexia use prior knowledge spontaneously to aid in comprehending text, and whether their
comprehension could be improved by the activation of prior knowledge. Two reading passages to
test for prior knowledge were given to each participant (see Appendix H). Information obtained
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 59
from an interview of the parents prior to testing of the participants was used to choose topics for
each passage. The first task was to read a passage that contained information the children did not
know a lot about. The second reading passage was one of relatively (i.e., relative to the first
passage) high knowledge but of no particular interest to the child. Prior to reading these passages,
several questions were asked with regard to the passage topic, such as "what color is a frog?" (see
Appendix H). This was done in order to assess the children's level of prior knowledge on the topic.
After the participants finished reading each passage, several passage dependent and independent
comprehension questions were administered as well as the rating scale. The same measure of
congruency that was described previously was used to assess each student's understanding of the
questions. Each passage was accompanied with a title and a picture that related to the passage in
order to activate schema. Each passage was compared as to how successful it was in activating the
child's schema and the level of help each student required for activation.
The number of correct responses to the comprehension questions was the dependent
variable for this prior knowledge task. Therefore, the participants received a score for the number
of questions they answered correctly out of the total number of questions asked.
On the measure of congruency, Bob had a non-congruent response for both low and high
knowledge passages. Similarly, Myles gave a non-congruent response to the rating scale for both
the high and low knowledge passages. However, the students with M I D evaluated the level of
difficulty of the passage correctly and gave congruent responses to the rating scale.
Tests for Interest. Following the test for prior knowledge, a layer of interest was added to
the previous reading task. This allowed for comparison between high knowledge, low interest, and
high knowledge, high interest passages. Each participant read a passage on a topic that had high
personal interest. Then each participant was asked several passage dependent and passage
independent comprehension questions (see Appendix I). A s in the prior knowledge task, the
children were given the rating scale for self-evaluation of their reading. Reliability was assessed
through the use of this congruency measure. Scoring for this task was similar to the prior
knowledge task. The dependent variable was the scores on the comprehension questions.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 60
Therefore, a score was calculated from the total number o f correct responses over the total number
of questions asked. Performance across passages was also compared.
Both participants with hyperlexia gave non-congruent responses to the rating scale for the
low interest passages and congruent responses to the rating scale on the high interest passages (see
Table 1). Both participants with M I D responded correctly to the rating scale and had congruent
responses for both low and high interest passages. For the first time (besides the practice
questions) the hyperlexic students had congruent responses for a passage. It appeared that the high
interest passage motivated the students with hyperlexia to attend more to the text, to comprehend
better, and to evaluate their understanding appropriately.
Phase 1 Procedure
Initially, participants were selected for the study through teacher nomination. Then, the
investigator followed up with a brief meeting, either on the phone or in person, with each set of
parents prior to the start of the investigation. The meeting lasted approximately 30 - 45 minutes. In
the meeting, the experimenter asked the parents to supply information regarding their children's
interests and knowledge about reading topics. Additionally, the investigator visited the classrooms
o f each participant, met their teachers, and had some interaction with the children prior to
beginning data collection. The Phase 1 measures were administered at the participants' schools.
For the students with hyperlexia, this phase took place over 2 sessions. However, the participants
with M I D took 4 sessions in order to complete this phase. During each experimental session, the
participant and the experimenter met at the child's school, in a quiet room, and sat across from one
another at a table. The length of the sessions varied across participants from 15 to 45 minutes. In
the first and second session, each participant in the hyperlexia group completed the Phase 1
measures of word reading ability (on the W R A T 3), pseudoword reading (on the Woodcock Word
Attack), receptive language (PPVT-III) and reading comprehension (on the K - T E A ) . The
student's in the M I D group needed 4 sessions in order to complete all the Phase 1 measures.
To begin the first session, the investigator sat across the table from the participant and told
him that she has a few tasks that she wanted them to do. The participants with hyperlexia
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 61
completed all phase 1 assessments in two sessions. However, the participants with M I D required 4
sessions to complete all phase 1 tasks. Therefore, the students with M I D did complete one task per
session. The procedure for each student remained the same regardless o f the number of sessions
needed to complete the assessments.
For the first task, the experimenter showed the student a word list from the W R A T 3 and
asked him to read the words aloud. The investigator simultaneously observed and scored the child.
After the child completed the word list, he was asked to read a list of pseudo-words taken from the
Woodcock Word Attack list. The following directions were given to the participant, "Read each of
these words out loud and tell me i f any o f the words are too difficult to read." The PPVT-III was
administered to assess the participant's receptive language. The participant was presented with a
set of four pictures and was asked to point to the picture that matched the stimulus word given by
the investigator. Next, each participant completed the brief form of the K - T E A Reading
Comprehension Test. For the comprehension portion of the test, the students were asked to read
the word or words and complete the desired action. The investigator remained seated with the child
for the duration o f the test. If the child had difficulty completing the task, the experimenter
supported the child by prompting them to stay on task. Additionally, the experimenter encouraged
each child to ask questions i f they did not understand something.
Phase 2 Procedure
In Phase 2 o f the experiment, each child received measures for metacognition, prior
knowledge, and interest. In the third session, the students with hyperlexia completed two of the
Phase 2 tasks: the error detection task and the self-correction task. Since the M I D group required
more time to complete each assessment, these same tasks were completed in the 5 t h and 6th
sessions. However, the procedure remained the same for each participant regardless of the number
of sessions. First, each child was asked to read the passage. Upon completion of the passage, the
children were given several comprehension questions, consisting of passage dependent and
independent knowledge. Following the comprehension questions, the children were asked to rate
the passage as (a) easy, (b) O K , a bit hard, or (c) hard, it didn't make sense. These choices were
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 62
printed on a sheet of paper with pictures of bunnies acting out each level of understanding. If, after
reading a passage, the participant decided that it was easy to understand, the experimenter asked
whether there was anything difficult or confusing about it. If the participant answered "no" the
experimenter directed the child's attention to an error and asked "What about this word? Can you
read it?" and then recorded the child's answers.
A running record of each participant's reading was completed in order to check for
monitoring of comprehension while reading. Each child was asked to read the passages out loud to
the experimenter. The investigator recorded the children's reading and metacognitive skills, such
as re-reading and self-correction. Body language and facial expressions were observed and
recorded as indicators of perceived difficulty, and frustration.
Additionally, both participants with hyperlexia received a challenging passage with
difficult vocabulary so they had the opportunity to self-correct. This particular task was too
difficult for the children with M I D who could not read any difficult vocabulary. Therefore, they
were not given this particular task. This self-correction task was used to examine the children's
metacognitive abilities. After the child finished reading the passage, the experimenter gave the
children several passage dependent and passage independent comprehension questions as well as
the rating scale described previously.
In the next session, each participant completed a test for prior knowledge. First, in order to
assess their prior knowledge, the participant was asked a few questions regarding their knowledge
on the passage topic. This was performed in order to see what prior knowledge they display as well
as to activate their schema of the topic. Next, the child was given two reading passages with a title
and picture to help activate their schema. The first passage was low interest/low knowledge and
the second, no particular interest/relatively high knowledge. After reading each passage, several
comprehension questions, both passage dependent and independent, were given to them to read
and answer. Again the same rating scale questions (as described above) were given to assess
self-awareness.
Finally, all participants received a passage that was of specific high-interest to each of
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 63
them. Again they were asked several passage dependent and independent comprehension
questions with regard to the passage. The children were also given the same rating scale questions
(as described above) in order to assess metacognition. After all the testing was completed, each
child was thanked for helping the experimenter to learn more about reading.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 64
C H A P T E R IV
Results
The purpose of this study was to examine reading comprehension in children with
hyperlexia and compare them with children with M I D . The participants were matched for age,
grade, and IQ. Two children with hyperlexia and two matched participants with M I D were
assessed on word reading, pseudo-word reading, general comprehension, and the specific aspects
of reading comprehension that are listed above. The primary research question was: What
accounts for the poor comprehension in these hyperlexic children? Is it their low language or
cognitive ability? Is it their failure to monitor or self-correct? Is it their failure to activate relevant
schema?
In this chapter, the results from the various assessments used are presented for each child.
A s well , some comparisons are made between the pairs of students with hyperlexia and children
with M I D . Initially the screening process is presented, followed by thorough descriptions of each
case. The results are divided into three main sections: identification and screening,.Phase 1 results,
and Phase 2 results.
Identification and Screening
Elementary and middle schools in the school district were notified about the study and its
criteria. Through teacher and school psychologist nomination, 24 students were considered for the
study. After consulting with each of the student's teachers, only 12 o f the 24 students were
considered to fit the study's criteria and were screened for the study. After initial discussions with
teachers and examination o f their files, only four children who fit the criteria for the study and had
parents who gave permission. The eight children not chosen for the study were found either to
have IQ scores that were not within the target range or had no appropriate age and IQ match. One
child did fit the criteria very well , but his parents did not give consent for him to participate.
Participants
The four participants chosen for the study were selected on the basis of either the criteria
for hyperlexia or M I D described in Chapter 3. A l l participants were matched in pairs according to
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 65
their age, IQ, and grade level. Bob and Myles were the participants with hyperlexia. Harvey and
Nelson were matches for Bob and Myles respectively. Table 2 shows the demographic information
for each student.
Table 2
Participant Information
Hyperlexia M I D Hyperlexia M I D
Matching Variable Bob Harvey Myles Nelson
Age (years/months) 8̂ 2 8.8 7^8
Grade 3 2 2 2
Ful l Scale IQ 54 68 69 69
Note. FSIQ data (full-scale IQ) was taken from the WISC-III. :
Bob. Bob was an 8-year-old boy in the third grade, who was described by his teachers as an
extremely good decoder with mild to moderate cognitive delays. Bob had an FSIQ on the
WISC-III of 54 (in the mi ld to moderately intellectually delayed range). He was reading at least 2
grade levels above his own grade, at a grade 5 level, but had very poor comprehension for what
was read. His teachers described him as having difficulty following and remembering directions
given to him in class. For example, at the beginning of each class the children were supposed to put
away their coats and bags and take out their books and homework from the previous day. Bob was
unable to perform this task on a daily basis without consistent prompting from one o f his teachers.
Bob was also considered to be somewhat of an enigma to both his parents and teachers. Neither his
teachers nor his parents knew how to help Bob improve his learning skills, as he seemed somewhat
difficult to teach. Bob did not appear to grasp any of the typical grade 3 lessons. Although he did
not have a classroom aide assigned to him, the assistant in the class was consistently involved in
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 66
helping Bob to keep on track and complete his work for the day. Bob was usually pleasant and well
behaved in the classroom, However, teachers did comment on his temper and difficult behavior
that arose from time to time. Bob was described by his parents as a precocious reader who began
reading before the age of 5 years and who would read anything he could get his hands on. Healy et
al. (1982) described their participants with hyperlexia with similar characteristics, such as early
and intense interest in words and reading, combined with delayed cognition and language. With
regard to reading interests, Bob, his parents, and teachers agreed that his main interest was learning
about Orcas (killer whales).
Harvey. Harvey was 7 years and 10 months old when the study took place. He was the age,
IQ match for Bob. Harvey was in grade 2 and had a WISC-III FSIQ of 68. He was described by his
teachers as mildly to moderately intellectually delayed and a very poor reader. Harvey needed help
with many tasks in his class and often needed an assistant to aid him. Harvey was well behaved in
class but had a very short attention span. Harvey was reading at a kindergarten level and had many
problems with decoding and pronunciation. According to his teacher, Harvey's comprehension
ability was better than his decoding ability, and during the study he was able to answer grade 1
level comprehension questions from a passage that was read to him. His mother described him as a
"slow" learner and wanted to learn how to help him to do better in school. According to his mother,
Harvey was not always comfortable working with new people and she preferred that i f he did not
want to do the necessary reading for the study that he should not be made to do it. Harvey and his
mother both agreed that his main interest was different types of vehicles.
My les. Myles was an 8-year-old boy in grade 2. His mother and teachers commented on his
exceptional decoding ability and intense interest in reading. Myles was able to decode at a grade 5
level or higher. According to his mother, he began reading at a very early age, 3 or 4 years, and
would read anything he could get his hands on. His biggest interest was hockey and he knew a lot
of information about different teams and how the game was played. Children with hyperlexia have
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 67
been described in previous studies as having autism or autistic like behaviors (Snowling & Firth,
1986; Whitehouse & Harris, 1984). Similarly, although not officially diagnosed, Myles had an /
/
almost autistic-like demeanor, presenting with definite sensory and behavior problems such as
sensitivity to touch, textures, sound, and temper tantrums. In addition, Myles was not successful
with social relationships with other children and had little interaction with them. Often, Myles
would become over-stimulated in the classroom and, to calm him, his sister would accompany him
to a piano room where Myles would play the piano for 20 to 30 minutes until he felt calm. Changes
in schedule were very difficult for Myles . In one incidence, the investigator came early for a
testing session and Myles was in his computer class. He threw an intense temper tantrum when
asked to leave the computer and go with the investigator. In order to calm him, the investigator told
him that she would wait to meet with him until his computer time was over. This appeared to sooth
Myles and he calmed down quickly. Myles also displayed a very short attention span, especially
when he was not interested in something or i f the task was too difficult for him. During error
detection tasks, Myles was very inattentive and would try to escape the task by running around the
room or playing with a toy plane.
Nelson. Nelson was described by his teachers as mild to moderately cognitively delayed
with very poor reading skills. He was the age and IQ match for Myles . Nelson was reading at a
kindergarten level and had considerable difficulty with pronunciation and decoding. His reading
comprehension was much better than his decoding. Nelson really enjoyed school and liked his
teachers. He was generally well behaved, although he was quite hyperactive with a very short
attention span. Nelson's parents and teachers reported that he was interested in anything about cars
or vehicles.
Phase 1 Results
The purpose of this phase was to confirm the status of students as hyperlexic or mildly
intellectually delayed group. For example, the PPVT-III gave a measure of each child's receptive
language ability. A l l the measures, except the K - T E A , were selected because they were used in
previous investigations to characterize students with hyperlexia. The PPVT-III was chosen since it
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 68
has proven to be well correlated with IQ and comprehension. In addition, the PPVT-III has been
well utilized in past research on hyperlexia (Glosser et el., 1996; Goldberg & Rothermel, 1984;
Siegel, 1984; Temple, 1990; Worthy & Invernizzi, 1995). The W R A T 3 was employed to assess
single word reading ability, which is generally very good in children with hyperlexia. The W R A T
3 has also been well utilized in past literature (Healy et al., 1982; Patti & Lupinetti, 1993) and was
employed by Siegel (1984) to assess word reading in a young girl with hyperlexia. The
Woodcock-Johnson Word Attack was used to test each participant's pseudo-word reading (or
decoding) ability, which has been shown to be very strong for the children with hyperlexia.
Finally, to get a standardized measure of each child's reading and comprehension skills, as well as
to demonstrate the discrepancy between word reading and comprehension in children with
hyperlexia, the reading subtest of the brief form of the K - T E A was administered. The K - T E A ,
although not utilized in past research, was the standardized measure of achievement that was used
in the participating school district.
The thesis question addressed in Phase 1 was: D id the participants with hyperlexia have
cognitive or IQ levels that are commensurate with their language or P P V T levels? Was their word
reading ability far above what was expected, given their age and IQ ability? Table 3 shows the
student's performance on these measures of IQ, receptive language, word-reading ability, and
reading comprehension.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 69
Table 3
Results for Phase 1: Cognitive Ability, Word Reading Measures and Comprehension
Hyperlexia M I D Hyperlexia M I D
Assessment Score Type Bob Harvey Myles Nelson
Measure of Cognitive Abi l i ty
WISC-III FSIQ 54 68 69 69
V I Q 63 55 73 72
PIQ 52 84 70 70
Measure o f Language Abi l i ty
PPVT-III SS 66 60 84 76
RS 63 49 93 84
A E 5.1 3.11 7 6.4
G E PreK PreK 1.5 K
Measure o f Word Reading
W R A T SS 129 69 102 67
RS 40 17 29 16
A E 14 6 9 6
G E 8 K 3 K
W O R D SS 113 0 102 67
RS 26 1 21 3
A E 13.5 5.1 10 6.3
G E 7.5 PreK 4 K
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 70
Assessment Score Type
Hyperlexia M I D Hyperlexia M I D
Assessment Score Type Bob Harvey Myles Nelson
Measure of Comprehension
K - T E A SS 101 . 0 93 0
RS 24 0 23 5
A E 10 8
G E 4 2.5
Note. A E = age equivalent, G E = grade equivalent, RS = raw score, SS = standard score, %ile = percentile. A l l IQ
scores are reported as: FS = full scale IQ, V = verbal IQ, P = performance IQ, PreK = pre-kindergarten, K =
kindergarten.
Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test III (PPVT-III)
Bob. Bob's standard score (SS) of 66 corresponded to an age equivalent (AE) of 5.1,
compared to his chronological age o f 8 years. This score was consistent with his Ful l Scale IQ
(FSIQ) of 54, which was in the moderately intellectually delayed range. Thus, Bob's cognitive and
language ability were significantly below average. During testing, Bob was very quick and
reckless when making his choices on the P P V T . When he did not know something he would
simply pick an item at random. He understood the task, but did not appear to take any extra time or
put any effort to think through each answer.
Harvey. Harvey achieved an SS of 60 on the P P V T , which corresponded to an A E score of
3.11, compared to his biological age of 8 years. Harvey's FSIQ score o f 68 was in the mildly
intellectually delayed range. It appeared that Harvey's IQ score was higher than his receptive
language level of 3.11 years of age. However, because his verbal IQ score was 55 and his
performance IQ score was 84, this greatly inflated his full-scale IQ. Therefore, his verbal IQ was
very close to his receptive language level. Harvey understood the task, but found it extremely
difficult. Frequently, he was unfamiliar with the receptive vocabulary for his age level, as well as
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 71
vocabulary years below his age level. Harvey often did not want to complete the task. Therefore,
he had to be tested on two different days in order to complete the assessment.
Myles. Myles achieved an SS on the P P V T of 84, which placed him only 1 year behind his
actual age of 8 years. This score suggested that Myles ' s receptive language resembled that of a
7-year-old child. His FSIQ score o f 69 was in the mildly intellectually delayed range. Therefore,
Myles 's language and cognition levels did appear close to equivalent, however, they were not as
close as Bob's scores. In past research, it has been frequently reported that children with
hyperlexia have higher P P V T scores compared to their IQ level (Temple, 1990; Worthy &
Invernizzi, 1995). Myles was very quick to give answers, whether he actually knew the answer or
not. He would often look to the investigator for reassurance of his choice. He also would try to look
at the investigator's answer sheet to see i f he had given the correct answer. Myles needed lots of
reassurance that he was doing the task well and appropriately.
Nelson. Nelson achieved a SS of 76, which corresponded to an A E of 6.4 years. His V I Q
score on the WISC-III was 72. This illustrated his low receptive language compared to age and
grade level. Nelson became easily bored and often needed a lot of prompting to keep him on task.
He had difficulty sitting still and would frequently try to escape the task at hand by telling the
investigator stories.
Comparison. The two children with hyperlexia appeared to have receptive language scores
that were below their age but at or around their IQ level. The boys with M I D had receptive
language scores that were well below their age level. However, Harvey's receptive language score
was much lower than his IQ level.
Wide Range Achievement Test 3 (WRA T 3)
Bob. Bob's SS of 129 on the W R A T 3 placed him at the 97 t h percentile and a grade 8
word-reading level. His A E score was 14 years. Bob's scores on this measure demonstrated his
excellent single word reading ability, which was far above what was expected for his cognitive
level (FSIQ = 54), current age (8 years) and grade level (grade 3). These findings paralleled results
from past research in which children with hyperlexia were found to have excellent word reading
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 72
abilities (Healy et al., 1982; Siegel, 1984; Temple, 1990). Bob appeared to enjoy this word-reading
task, which also paralleled children with hyperlexia in the literature. Bob seemed to use a
phonological approach to word reading as the words became more challenging to decode. He was
very successful at sounding out the words. This appeared to be relatively easy for him, which
mimicked many children in the literature with hyperlexia, who were reported as successful
phonological readers (Healy et al., 1982; Siegel, 1984).
Harvey. Harvey found this task very difficult. He could only read two words on the W R A T
3. Harvey's SS of 69 on this measure placed him at the 2 n d percentile and at a kindergarten reading
level, far below what was expected for his age and grade level. His score was eight G E ' s below
Bob's . Harvey attempted to use phonetics to sound out the difficult words on this measure.
Myles. Myles found this task quite simple. He enjoyed reading the words, but became
frustrated as the words grew more difficult than he could decode, like "bibliography." Myles
appeared to use a sight word or orthrographic approach to reading, since he did not appear to be
very good at sounding out the words. Similarly, previous studies that examined reading routes in
children with hyperlexia reported a sight word or othrographic approach to reading in their
participants (Goldberg & Rothermel, 1984; Seymour & Evans, 1992). Myles had a SS of 96 on the
W R A T 3, which placed him at the 39 t h percentile, with an A E of 9 years and a grade 3 decoding
level. This meant that Myles was reading one grade ahead of his actual age and grade. However,
upon examination of Myles ' s cognitive level (FSIQ = 69), his word-reading score is much higher
than would be expected.
Nelson. Nelson found this task very difficult. He could only read two words on the W R A T
3 and 14 out of 15 letters. His SS was 66, which placed him at the 1 s t percentile and a kindergarten
grade level. Nelson used a phonological approach to reading, as he attempted to sound out each
word he read.
Comparison. The two children with hyperlexia clearly demonstrated their excellent
decoding skills on this task. A s expected, Bob scored much higher than his cognitive, age or grade
level. Myles also scored much better than expected for his cognitive level, where as Harvey and
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 73
Nelson scored much lower than expected for their age or grade level. The performance of Bob and
Myles on this measure was far above what is expected, given their low cognitive ability, whereas
Harvey and Nelson's scores were consistent with their cognitive level.
Word Attack
Bob. Bob had a SS of 113 on the Word Attack, which placed him at the 80 t h percentile. He
achieved an A E score of 13.5 years and a G E score of 8. This task clearly illustrated Bob's superior
decoding and phonetic skills. Once again, Bob scored much higher than would be expected for his
cognitive level. Siegel (1984) reported similar results for a young girl with hyperlexia. Although
her comprehension was extremely limited, her pseudo word reading was far above her age/grade
level.
Harvey. Harvey's raw score (RS) of 1 on the Word Attack placed him below the 1 s t
percentile and at an age equivalent of 3.11 years. He was only able to point to the letter "r."
Harvey's score was too low to be transformed to an SS or to compute a G E . This clearly
demonstrated Harvey's weak decoding skills.
Myles. Myles achieved a SS of 102 on the Word Attack. This corresponded to an A E score
of 10 years, a G E score of 4, and the 55 l h percentile. These scores were much higher than would be
expected for someone with an IQ of 69. A s predicted, Myles ' s decoding skills were very strong for
this pseudo-word reading assessment. It appears that Myle ' s orthographic approach to reading
may have affected his performance on this task.
Nelson. Nelson scored 67, which was equal to an A E score o f 6.3 years and placed him at
the 1 s t percentile. He was unable to read any of the pseudo-words. Therefore, he was only able to
read and sound out three single letters correctly.
Comparisons. Bob and Myles 's performance on the Word Attack was consistent with the
criteria for hyperlexia. Bob scored much higher than his age, language or cognitive level should
allow. Myles also performed better than his cognitive or language level should allow, but did not
do as well as Bob. Conversely, the boys with M I D had scores that were more consistent with their
cognitive level, and their scores were well below what would be expected of typical readers in
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 74
their age/grade range. Harvey scored very low on this task and was 4 - 5 years below his
chronological age. Nelson was 2-years below his age-level on this task.
Kaufman Test of Achievement (K-TEA)
Bob. Bob achieved a SS of 101 on the K - T E A , which placed him at the 53 r d percentile.
Bob 's A E score was 10 years and his G E was 4. This score was much better than expected for a
child with hyperlexia, and due to the various limitations o f this assessment, may not present a very
accurate estimate of reading comprehension ability. The brief form of the K - T E A does not provide
separate assessments of students decoding and reading comprehension. Since Bob was very
successful at decoding, he was able to do well at the start o f the test. A s the test progressed, Bob
was only able to answer a few of the complex two word directions. This trait has been frequently
reported in studies of children with hyperlexia. Siegel (1984) and Healy et al. (1982) reported that
participants could not seem to understand the directions given to them, or even simple commands.
Harvey. Harvey was unable to read any of the words for this test and therefore achieved a
score o f 0 for this task. He did not get beyond the strictly decoding portion of the comprehension
section of this assessment. Therefore, there was no measure of reading comprehension for Harvey.
Myles. Myles had a SS of 93 on the K - T E A , which falls at the 34 t h percentile and was a
good score considering his IQ level. His A E score was 8-years-of-age and his G E was 2.5. Once
again, these results may indicate a much higher comprehension score than was true to Myles ' s
actual comprehension abilities. Since Myles had a very recent K - T E A performed by the school
psychologist, his score from that assessment was used for this investigation. However, since this
previously administered test was used, more specific information about Myles ' s answers were not
available.
Nelson. Nelson was only able to read one word, the word "at." Therefore, he did not even
get a chance to demonstrate his comprehension abilities on this task.
Comparisons. A comparison o f performances on this task did not do justice to the actual
reading comprehension skills in these children. The brief form of the K - T E A was a convenient
standardized measure of participant's reading comprehension. Unfortunately, due to the
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 75
confounding of decoding and comprehension, it was a poor gauge of reading comprehension in
these students. What it did appear to confirm was that word reading ability was much higher in
both children with hyperlexia compared to their M I D counterparts. Both Bob and Myles achieved
higher scores on the reading comprehension section compared to Harvey or Nelson. The scores for
the students with hyperlexia were inflated due to their excellent decoding abilities. Conversely, the
scores for the students with M I D were deflated due to their difficulty in decoding any of the words
on this measure of "comprehension."
Phase 2 Results
The purpose for this phase in the study was to examine the comprehension and
metacognitive awareness of children with hyperlexia compared to the performance o f the children
with M I D . A s previously stated in Chapter 2, reading comprehension is made up of many
important components. Key components of successful reading comprehension are: prior
knowledge, metacognition, motivation and interest. Motivation, interest, and prior knowledge
have been found to have a tremendous impact on children's reading comprehension. For example,
when interest is high, children have much higher reading comprehension (De Sousa & Oakhil l ,
1996). Previous studies have concluded that successful readers are metacognitive thinkers
(Garner, 1987; Perry, 1998). This means they monitor their own comprehension while they read,
recognizing and self-correcting problems in their reading. The current study examined the effects
o f these key components on reading comprehension.
The error detection tasks were used to assess the participant's metacognitive abilities
through insertion o f errors in the reading passage. The first error detection passage had symbols
inserted in various places in the passage and the second error detection passage contained
pseudowords. The self-correction task used very difficult vocabulary in order to force students'
recognition of a comprehension breakdown and use of problem solving strategies. Prior
knowledge tasks examined both high and low (comparatively) prior knowledge about a topic and
the impact on comprehension. The interest passages were similar to the prior knowledge tasks as
they assessed the difference in comprehension level for both high and low interest passages. The
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 76
data collected for phase 2 measures on reading comprehension can be found in Table 4.
It was predicted that the children with hyperlexia would perform more poorly on error
detection tasks compared to the M I D children. It was also predicted that the two children with
hyperlexia would detect more errors in the first error detection with embedded symbols compared
to the second error detection with pseudo words. For the self-correction task, which consisted of
some very difficult vocabulary, it was predicted that the children with hyperlexia would decode the
words without comprehending them and that the students with M I D would apply more
self-correction strategies. Prior knowledge was predicted to have a positive impact on
comprehension for both groups of children. Interest was also expected to have a positive influence
on reading comprehension for both the hyperlexic group and M I D group. However, it was
predicted that the hyperlexic students would not use metacognitive tactics to aid their reading
comprehension. Conversely, the students with M I D were predicted to display some simple
metacognitive tactics when reading.
Error Detection #1
Bob. Bob's error detection score on the 1 s t task was 25%, which means he only detected 2
out of 8 errors in the passage. Bob appeared very confused by these words with embedded symbols
in them. He tried to read these words one letter and symbol at a time. For example, "r$#k", he
would read as "r, dollar, number, k." Although he did, in fact, read the pseudoword correctly, his
reactions to these errors illustrated his view that reading is decoding and not comprehending.
Frequently Bob would make non-meaningful substitutions for words, such as "slow" for "s%*#y",
which made no sense in the context of the sentence. When asked i f he found the passage "easy" to
read, "ok, a little hard", or "really hard" to read, Bob answered, "easy, because the words were
easy to read." Consequently, Bob did not exhibit any metacognitive thinking, since he did not
recognize the errors. In addition, Bob demonstrated no understanding that the passage made no
sense as written.
Harvey. Harvey detected all 5 out of 5 errors in this reading passage. Harvey was more
cautious than the other children and although he noticed all 5 errors, he was hesitant to say that the
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 77
first error was not a real word. He hesitated at the first error then said, "what's this?" The
investigator responded with, "I 'm not sure, what do you think it is?" "It's not a word", Harvey
responded. Even Harvey, with his very poor decoding was able to acknowledge that those "weird
words" were not "real" words. When given the metacognitive rating scale, Harvey replied that the
passage was "really hard to read, because there were weird words in it." It was apparent from
Harvey's responses that he understood reading was more than decoding. He tried to understand the
passage.
Myles. Myles achieved a score o f 12% (1 out of 8 errors) for this error detection task.
Myles had a tendency to ignore the symbol words and trying to skip by them to read the next words
in the passage. When asked what the word " w * A $ f ' meant, his answer was "I don't know." Myles
often made non-meaningful substitutions, such as " w o l f for "w* A $f ' , which did not make any
sense in the context of the sentence or the passage. Despite the trouble with reading this passage,
when asked i f the passage was "easy" to read, "a little hard, but ok", or "really hard" to read, he
answered, "easy, because it was a story." This answer indicated that Myles was not applying
metacognitive thinking to help his comprehension of the passage.
Nelson. Nelson scored 100% (5 out of the 5 errors) in the first error detection passage. It
appeared very easy for Nelson to inform the investigator, "Those aren't real words." When Nelson
received the rating scale, he answered that the passage was, "a little hard, but ok, because of the
silly words". Since Nelson was aware that the passage did not make sense, it appeared that he was
monitoring his comprehension of the passage.
Comparison. Upon examination o f the results from this task, it was quite clear that the
children with hyperlexia did not monitor comprehension or evaluate their understanding when
reading these error detection passages. Bob and Myles found fewer errors compared to their M I D
matches. Similarly, Goldberg and Rothermel (1984) reported no difference in reading ability or
comprehension of their participants with hyperlexia when reading passages that contained errors
or no errors.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 78
Table 4
Phase 2 Comprehension & Metacognitive Awareness Measures: Percent of Correct Answers
Hyperl exia M I D Hyperlexia M I D
Assessment Bob Harvey Myles Nelson
Metacognitive Awareness
E D #1 (symbols) 25% b 100% a 13% b 100% a
E D #2 (nonwords) 8% b 80% a 8% b 80% a
Self-correction 30% b 30% b
Low P. K . 1 6 % b 83% a 50% b 8 3 % a
Low Interest 33% b 100% a 66% b 100% a
High P. K . 1 6 % b 83% a 83% b 100% a
High Interest 6 6 % c 100% a 100% d 83% a
Note. P.K. = prior knowledge; a = kindergarten level, = grade 2 level , c = grade 6 level, = grade 5 level
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 79
Error Detection #2
Bob. On the second error detection task, Bob detected 1 out of 12 or 8% o f the pseudo
word errors embedded in the passage. The word that Bob detected was "dute". He asked, "What
word is this?" Through the remainder of the passage, Bob either skipped over the pseudo-words
or attempted to decode them. When asked i f the passage was "easy", "okay", or "really hard",
Bob answered "easy, because the words were easy to read". This answer demonstrated Bob's
lack of monitoring his own comprehension while reading.
Harvey. Harvey detected 80% or 4 out of 5 errors. He missed the 1 s t error, "keek".
Harvey found this task more difficult than the first error detection passage. Unless the errors
were clearly non-words, it was difficult for Harvey to catch them since his decoding skills were
so poor. When asked how he found the passage, easy, okay, or very hard, Harvey answered,
"really hard, because of the silly words". Therefore, Harvey realized that these non-words were
"s i l ly" words and that the passage did not make sense. Once again, Harvey showed evidence of
applying metacognitive thinking while reading the passage.
Myles. On this error detection task, Myles was able to detect only 1 out of 12 or 8% of
the pseudo words embedded in the passage. The word that Myles asked about was "oolum". He
questioned the investigator, "What's this word?" Through the rest of the passage Myles skipped
over all the pseudowords or he would make up words in their place, such as "open" for "oolum",
which made no sense in the context of the passage. Myles said that this passage was, "a bit
difficult" to read "because a girl went up the h i l l " . Therefore, Myles did recognize that the
passage was difficult, but did not know why it was difficult. This statement conveyed that Myles
did not monitor his own comprehension; that he had no metacognitive awareness or reasoning
why the passage was a bit difficult to read. However, he did understand that going up a hi l l was
hard. Therefore, he did attend to the meaning at the sentence level.
Nelson. Nelson achieved a score of 80%, which means he detected 4 out of 5 errors in the
passage. He missed the 1 s t error, "keek". Nelson did have some problems on this task that were
specifically related to his low decoding abilities. However, he was quite accurate in determining
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 80
which words were the pseudowords. When asked how he found the passage, he replied, "Okay,
some of the words were hard," and he pointed to the pseudo-words. Nelson did understand that
the passage was difficult to understand due to the pseudo-words and, therefore, he illustrated
metacognitive thinking.
Comparison. It was hypothesized that the children with hyperlexia would do much better
on the first error detection task with the embedded symbols compared to the second error
detection task with the difficult vocabulary. Bob actually detected slightly more errors in the first
passage, however there was not a large discrepancy in errors found between passage 1 and 2.
Harvey and Nelson were quite adept at picking out the non-words. They both missed the same
error, "keek". It's possible that this word was too similar to a "real" word for the M I D children to
detect. These findings suggest that the children with M I D did monitor their comprehension
whereas the children with hyperlexia did not appear to monitor their comprehension.
Self-Correction
Only Bob and Myles were able to complete the self-correction task containing difficult
vocabulary. Harvey and Nelson found it too difficult, even though a simple passage was used,
rated at a K to grade 1 reading level. They could not read any words from the original passage
and, therefore, this task was too difficult for them to complete.
Bob. On the self-correction task using difficult vocabulary words, Bob detected 30% or 3
out of 10 of the difficult words in the passage. The words that Bob asked about were
"adjudicated", "impulsively", and "sasquatch". He was unable to decode those words and
therefore stopped and asked, "What's this word say?" Bob's behavior in this task illustrated
some ability to focus on self-correction and comprehension at the sentence level. However, it
appeared to be only when he was forced to his decoding limit that he would ask for help with his
comprehension. When asked how he found the passage, easy, okay, or very hard, Bob replied
"easy, because it's about beavers". Obviously Bob did not consider the complexity o f the words
or comprehension, nor did he recall the difficulty he had reading some words. Instead he relied
on his prior knowledge of beavers to conclude the text was easy to read. This suggests that Bob
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 81
was not reading for meaning or monitoring his ability to comprehend the passage. However, the
fact that he recognized some difficult words and asked about them is evidence of some
monitoring of his reading.
Myles. Myles had a score of 30% detection of the difficult words. This means he detected
3 out of 10 of the difficult vocabulary embedded in this passage. Myles found three of the words
hard to decode, "adjudicated", "impulsively", and "resonated". He often skipped over the
difficult words when he could not decode them. When asked what "veering" meant, he said, "I
don't know". When asked what a "chasm" was, he said, "it's a den", which did imply some use
of context to understand the sentence since the sentence implied that the beavers lived in a
chasm. In Addition, he was able to understand that a "sasquatch" was some type of a monster.
This answer showed that Myles was using the context of the sentence to understand the word
"sasquatch". When asked i f he found the passage, easy, okay, or very hard, he answered,
"Okay". When asked why it was "okay" for him, he pointed to two of the difficult words,
"impulsively" and "resonated" and said, "these were hard to read". In this situation, Myles did
show some ability to evaluate his understanding of the passage he was reading. However, he did
not attempt to ask for help to read the most difficult words, or ask what they meant. Myles would
often demonstrate a lack of self-correction without the prompt of another individual.
Low Prior Knowledge
Bob. Bob scored 16% on this task, which means he answered 1 comprehension question
correctly out of 6 questions. The correct answer was from a passage independent question, which
suggests he may have known the answer prior to reading the passage. This grade 2 level passage
was easily read by Bob with 100% accuracy. However, he did not seem to retain any information
that he read nor be able to look back to the text for answers. This finding is similar to that of
Healy et al. (1982) where the children with hyperlexia were unable to retain meaningful
sentences or unable to utilize any abstract forms o f thinking. When asked about the level of
difficulty of the passage using the rating scale, Bob replied, "easy, because the words were easy
to read".
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 82
Harvey. Harvey scored 83% on this passage. He answered 5 out of 6 of the questions
correctly. The incorrect answer from the comprehension questions was a passage dependent
question. Harvey read with 60% accuracy. Decoding errors, included " i f for "sip" and "snail"
for "small." When asked how difficult the passage was using the rating scale, Harvey replied,
"really hard, because the words were hard to read." Since the passages had to be simple for
Harvey to read them (at an early K-level), it is not surprising that he scored quite high.
Myles. Myles achieved a score of 50%, which was equal to 3 out of^6 correct answers.
The passage was written at a grade 2 level that was easily read by Myles who achieved 100%
accuracy. He was a little more adept at remembering what he had read than Bob, but Myles also
limited his use of metacognitive strategies and rarely looked back to the text for answers. Myles
answered 2 out of 3 passage independent questions correctly and 1 out of 3 passage dependent
questions correctly. When asked to rate the level o f difficulty of this passage, he answered,
"easy, because the words were easy".
Nelson. Nelson scored 83% on this task. He answered 5 out of 6 of the questions
correctly. The only error he made was with a passage dependent question. Nelson's reading
accuracy was 64% on this passage. Decoding errors included "beak" for " b i l l " and "stop" for
"slow". Despite Nelson's low attention span, he was able to answer the comprehension questions
with ease. He had no problem when it came to looking back to the text for answers. When asked
to rate the level of difficulty of this passage, Nelson replied, "a little hard, because o f some
words I can't read".
Comparison. The students with M I D did quite well (83%) on this task. A s predicted,
students with hyperlexia did poorly on these passages. The question now becomes can we boost
comprehension in students with hyperlexia by having them read passages for which they have
high knowledge of the topic?
High Prior Knowledge
Bob. Bob achieved a score of 16% or 1 out of 6 for the grade 2 reading passage, and 60%
or 3 out of 5 for the K-level reading passage that all the participants received. Bob read this
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 83
passage with 100% accuracy. He appeared to perform better on the simpler passage that was at a
much lower reading level. On the grade 1 level passage for high prior knowledge, Bob scored
much better compared with the grade 2 passage. He achieved a 75%, or 6 out of 8 correct
answers on this passage. One possible explanation for the higher score on the grade 1 passage
would be that Bob was capable of comprehending more efficiently at a lower reading level.
Harvey. Harvey achieved a perfect score or 5 out of 5 on the K-level passage. This was
an easy passage for Harvey to read and comprehend, as he was very familiar with the book.
Harvey decoded with 80% accuracy. His errors were all decoding errors.
Myles. Myles scored 50% or 3 out of 6 on the K-level passage and 83% or 5 out of 6 on
the grade 2 level passage. He decoded these passages with 100% accuracy. Myles read the same
grade 1 passage about frogs as Bob. However, Myles found this task easy and achieved 100%
comprehension or 8 out of 8 on this passage. It could be possible that Myles had a fairly high
interest in frogs, which would explain his higher comprehension rate for the second passage.
Nelson. Nelson achieved a perfect score, 100% or 5 out of 5. This passage was quite easy
for Nelson as he was familiar with both the book and topic. He read with 84% accuracy on this
passage. His errors were all decoding errors.
Comparison. There was a lot of difference between the scores on the high and low prior
knowledge tasks for Myles (50% on low prior knowledge and 83% on high prior knowledge).
Bob did not have any difference in scores between the low and high prior knowledge passages
(16% on both passages). However, the children with M I D achieved a score of 100% on the high
prior knowledge passage versus 83% on the low prior knowledge task. This pattern of scores
suggested that Bob was not using prior knowledge to aid comprehension compared to the M I D
children. Similarly, Snowling and Frith (1986) reported that children with hyperlexia did not use
prior knowledge when answering questions about the text.
Low Interest
Bob. Bob scored 33% on the low interest passage, which meant he answered 2 of the 6
comprehension questions correctly, one passage independent and one passage dependent
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 84
question. He read this passage with 100% accuracy. Bob had difficulty answering most of the
comprehension questions, particularly those that were passage dependent.
Harvey. Harvey achieved a perfect score of 6 out o f 6. His decoding for this passage was
at 54% accuracy. Decoding errors included "same" for "sam" and "black" for "ball" . He had no
problem answering the questions or looking back to the text for answers.
Myles. Myles scored 66% or 4 out of 6 correct responses. He decoded with 100%
accuracy. Although kites were not a high interest for Myles , he appeared to know a lot about
them and was able to answer all passage independent questions as well as one passage dependent
question.
Nelson. Nelson achieved 100% or 6 out of 6 on this passage. His accuracy score for this
passage was 54%. A l l errors were decoding errors. Although he had problems decoding some of
the words in the passage, he easily answered all comprehension questions.
Comparison. For this task, both children with M I D demonstrated good reading
comprehension regardless of interest in the topic. Myles actually did quite well on this passage.
A possible explanation for this high score could be that he had quite a bit o f knowledge about
kites and was using his prior knowledge to improve his comprehension. However, Bob continued
his pattern o f low reading comprehension for this passage.
High Interest
Bob. Bob achieved a score of 66% comprehension or 4 out of 6 on this grade 6-7-level,
high interest passage. He read this passage at 85% accuracy even though it contained many
difficult words, such as, "conical". This was the highest comprehension score that Bob achieved
despite the fact that this was the most difficult o f all the passages he had read. Bob was very
interested in the topic of killer whales and highly motivated to comprehend what he was reading.
He even attempted to employ some metacognitive skills, such as re-reading and looking back to
the text in order to help with comprehension of the passage. Bob achieved all three passage
dependent questions correctly, and 2 out of 3 of the passage independent questions correctly.
Harvey. Harvey achieved 100% comprehension or 6 out of 6 on this task. He read this
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 85
passage with 67% accuracy, with errors that included "red" for "green" and "blue" for "black".
Again, the passage was quite simple, at K-level , and was also about cars, which highly motivated
Harvey. He answered all passage dependent and independent questions correctly.
Myles. Myles achieved 100% or 6 out of 6 on his grade 5-level passage. He read this
passage with 100% accuracy. The passage about hockey clearly captured his full attention and
increased his motivation for learning. He found the comprehension questions easy to answer.
Myles was able to answer all the passage dependent and independent questions correctly. A s
Hid i (1990) suggested, high interest in a topic leads to an increase in motivation for learning.
Myles was far more motivated to answer the comprehension questions for this passage than any
other passage he read. Additionally, as described in Baldwin et al. (1985), Myles scored better
when interest and prior knowledge were high.
Nelson. Nelson scored 83% or 5 out of 6 on his high interest passage. He read this
passage with 77% accuracy. His decoding errors included "blue" for "black". Nelson had some
difficulty decoding even the simple words in this passage. He was also quite distracted and
restless this day, which could explain why his score was less than 100% on this passage. Nelson
answered all three passage independent questions correctly, and only 1 of the 3 passage
dependent questions correctly.
Comparison. Reading comprehension for the high interest passage greatly improved for
the two children with hyperlexia who scored much higher on the comprehension questions for
this high interest versus the low interest passage. These findings are of significance since the
reading levels of the high interest passages for the students with hyperlexia were much higher
compared to the prior knowledge passages (i.e., Levels 4 and 6 vs. Level 2). Higher grade level
passages were used for the pair of students with hyperlexia to test their decoding limit and
demonstrate how much of an impact interest had for them on reading comprehension. Somehow
their interest for the subject forced their attention to the task and hence improved their
comprehension levels. There was no difference in comprehension on the low and high interest
passages for the s.tudents with M I D . However, the passages for the M I D children had to be quite
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 86
simple in order for them to be able to decode the words. Therefore, the simplicity of the passages
could have made it easy for them regardless o f their interest level. These results were similar to
the findings reported by De Sousa and Oakhill (1996), who found that good comprehenders
performed well on both high and low interest tasks, where the poor comprehenders performed
significantly better on the high interest passage.
Summary
Upon examination of the results, a more detailed picture of reading comprehension in
children with hyperlexia and children with M I D is more apparent. In Phase 1 of the
investigation, the two students with hyperlexia illustrated their word reading abilities despite
their low cognitive levels. In comparison, the two participants with M I D appeared to have great
difficulty with word reading. However, in Phase 2, the M I D students demonstrated higher
comprehension than the students with hyperlexia. During Phase 2 of the study, Bob and Myles
demonstrated little or no understanding of the purpose for reading. Neither boys employed self-
correction techniques, nor did they stop for errors unless their decoding limits were challenged.
High prior knowledge did not have a positive effect on the reading comprehension for Bob, but
did show some effect for Myles ' comprehension. However, high interest had a positive effect on
the comprehension of both these students. Both Bob and Myles scored much higher on their
reading comprehension questions for the high interest passages. Neither students with hyperlexia
illustrated self-awareness o f their reading or comprehension abilities. These students consistently
reported the passages they read as "easy", yet they could not answer simple questions about the
passages. These findings are important since one would expect all four of the participants would
have similar reading comprehension abilities because their cognitive and language levels are all
equivalent. However, this was not the case at all . The students with M I D had good
comprehension abilities for their cognitive level, whereas the students with hyperlexia did not
have good comprehension abilities for their cognitive level.
In Phase 2, the boys with M I D displayed very good comprehension for their decoding
level. Both Harvey and Nelson were consistent in catching the errors embedded in the passages.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 87
Furthermore, they had quite good comprehension despite their decoding problems. Both boys
applied metacognitive thinking and appeared to understand the purpose for reading. They were
consistent in rating the passages accurately according to their ability to understand them.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 88
C H A P T E R V
Conclusion/Discussion
Despite the number of studies over the years that have examined the reading processes of
children with hyperlexia, there has been little agreement concerning the underlying
comprehension problems in these children (Aram, 1997). Additionally, there has been much
lacking in the literature regarding several important aspects of reading comprehension, such as
prior knowledge, interest, and metacognition. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to
examine these areas of reading comprehension in order to develop a more complete picture o f
the comprehension deficit in children with hyperlexia. This study compared these aspects of
reading comprehension across cases of children with hyperlexia and children with M I D . Few
studies have matched students with hyperlexia with students of the same age, IQ, and grade but
who do not have hyperlexia. Therefore, this study, with its matched pairs of participants, further
develops an understanding of the unique strengths and weakness in reading for children with
hyperlexia. Matched participants allowed for examination and comparison of distinct aspects of
reading comprehension in hyperlexia versus M I D . This permitted a much stronger conclusion to
be drawn regarding the unique comprehension deficit in children with hyperlexia. Additionally,
due to the number of studies with such large variance of ages and IQs in their participants, this
study focused on students between the ages of 7 - 9 years, all in grades 2 and 3, and all within
the mild to moderately intellectually delayed range o f IQ as measured by the WISC-III. In short,
in this study, participants with hyperlexia met Healy et al.'s (1982) criteria of: (a) spontaneous
and intense early interest in letters and words prior to the age o f 5 years, coupled with, (b)
significantly disordered language and cognitive development, and (c) word recognition
(decoding) well advanced over other cognitive and linguistic abilities.
In Phase 1 of this study, the participants were assessed on their word reading and pseudo
word reading. This was done to confirm the status o f the children as either hyperlexic or M I D , as
well as to provide a standardized measure of reading comprehension in all four participants. For
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 89
the second phase of the study, reading comprehension was further examined. In particular,
assessments of students' ability to detect errors, self-correct, use prior knowledge and benefit
from high interest were administered. The findings are summarized below according to each
thesis question posed in the first chapter.
1) Is comprehension commensurate with cognition or language abilities (i.e., is low
cognition and low language ability sufficient as an explanation for hyperlexics poor
comprehension)?
This question is more easily addressed in two parts. First, are the verbal IQ scores and
PPVT-III scores of both pairs of students equivalent? Second, are low cognition and low
language levels sufficient to explain the low comprehension in students with hyperlexia? To
answer the first part of the question, IQ and PPVT-III scores must be evaluated with caution
since IQ and receptive vocabulary scores are not directly comparable. However, when evaluating
standard scores for both the WISC-III and PPVT-III , it would be expected that a child with low
verbal IQ would also have low PPVT-III scores. This appears to be the case for all four students.
For example, Bob scored a 66 (SS) or an age-equivalent of 5.1 years on the P P V T . On the
WISC-III his V I Q was 63, which places him in the moderately intellectually delayed range.
Myles scored 84 (SS) on the P P V T , which gives him an A E o f 7 years o f age. On the WISC-III,
his V I Q was 73, which places him in the mildly intellectually delayed category. Harvey's score
on the P P V T (SS of 60) corresponded to an age equivalent score o f 3.11. His V I Q on the W I S C -
III was 55, which places him in the moderately intellectually delayed category. Nelson had a
V I Q score of 72 (SS), which places him in the mildly intellectually delayed category. His P P V T
score of 76 (SS) gives him an A E score of 6.4. These standard scores are very similar and close
to equivalency in all four students.
Part 2 of the question examines low cognition and language as a sufficient explanation
for low comprehension in children with hyperlexia. It would be expected that, since all four
students were matched according to their cognitive ability, and all o f them had language levels
equivalent to their cognitive levels, that their level of reading comprehension would also be the
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 90
same. However, this was not the case. The two students with M I D achieved much higher
comprehension levels compared to the students with hyperlexia. Both Bob and Myles had poor
reading comprehension on all passages except the high interest passage. Conversely, Harvey and
Nelson had excellent reading comprehension on all reading passages. Therefore, although it
would be expected that all four of these students would all perform equally well on reading
comprehension, this did not happen. These conclusions suggest that low cognition and low
language levels are not a sufficient explanation for the comprehension problems in children with
hyperlexia. Snowling and Firth (1986) similarly proposed that low language levels on their own
could not account for the poor reading comprehension in children with hyperlexia.
2) Do children with hyperlexia comprehend better when prior knowledge is high?
Bob did not show improvement in reading comprehension when prior knowledge was
high. Myles did improve reading comprehension for the high prior knowledge passage compared
to the low prior knowledge passage. Myles appeared to utilize his prior knowledge to answer the
comprehension questions, whereas Bob did not. The students with M I D slightly improved their
comprehension with high prior knowledge. Both Harvey and Nelson utilized their prior
knowledge to answer the comprehension questions. In regards to the students with M I D , these
findings mimic Carr and Thompson (1996), who reported that children with L D benefited from
having high prior knowledge when reading passages as it improved their reading comprehension.
3) Do they comprehend better when interest is high?
There was an effect of high interest on the comprehension of both students with
hyperlexia. The students with hyperlexia had better comprehension on more difficult reading
passages with high interest compared to their low interest passages. For example, Bob's
comprehension improved greatly on a high interest passage where he scored 4/6, compared to
only 2/6 on the low interest passage. Myles ' s scores also improved. He achieved 6/6 on his high
interest passage and 4/6 on the low interest passage. This suggests that, when motivation to
comprehend is very high, these students can focus enough to understand what they are reading.
Paris et al. (1983) described the need for both knowledge and motivation in order to use various
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 91
cognitive strategies to improve comprehension. Baldwin et al. (1985) found that when interest in
the reading topic was high, the comprehension of males in their study was significantly higher
compared to low interest topics.
In contrast, interest did not benefit students with M I D compared to the hyperlexic
participants. Harvey scored 6/6 on both high and low interest passages, and Nelson scored 5/6
and 6/6, on these passages, respectively. The reading comprehension o f the two students
appeared to be quite good regardless of their interest in the topic.
4) Do children with hyperlexia monitor their own comprehension?
There was a disparity between the students with hyperlexia with regard to comprehension
monitoring. Myles was inconsistent in monitoring his reading comprehension. There were
several instances in which he stopped at a difficult word and asked, "What does this say?"
However, he preferred to skip the words he did not know or make up words to replace them. Bob
would only monitor his own comprehension when he was prompted to look back in the passage.
In the error detection #1 task, Bob stopped for only 1 of the 8 errors. He read, made non-
meaningful substitutions, or skipped over all the other errors in the passage. On the self-
evaluation scale, Bob commented that the passage was "easy" to read and said that it was due to
the easy words. However, when asked what the word "r#+k" meant, he could not give an answer.
For the error detection #2 passage, Bob stopped for only 2 out of 10 errors. He did not ask about
the first two most difficult words, he just skipped over them. He did ask what the third very
difficult word meant. Bob did not pay attention to punctuation. For example, he would read right
through periods and create one long run-on sentence. A lack o f comprehension monitoring in
children with hyperlexia has been consistently reported in the literature. For example, Goldberg
and Rothermel (1984) found that their participants with hyperlexia did not even notice the
change in punctuation in altered sentences and paragraphs.
In contrast, both students with M I D demonstrated comprehension monitoring when
reading. For example, Harvey did show signs of monitoring his own comprehension. He was
aware of when he could not read the words and he would slow down and sound out the word. He
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 92
would rarely skip over a word. In both error detection tasks, Harvey was able to catch all but one
error. The only error he missed was the non-word "keek." Nelson also employed comprehension
monitoring tactics. He would slow down and strive to sound out the words he could not read or
he would ask what a word meant when he did not know it. Nelson was able to discover all errors
except one in both of the error detection tasks.
5) Do children with hyperlexia self-correct?
The students with hyperlexia were not consistent with using self-correction strategies.
They did some self-correction at the word level when they were not able to pronounce the word.
However, self-correction never occurred at the sentence level or paragraph level. These findings
are comparable to those of Healy et al. (1982) who reported that none of their participants with
hyperlexia employed self-correction at the sentence level. They did self-correct, but it was only
at the word-level, when pronunciation of a word was not possible that self-correction would
occur. Similarly, Bob only demonstrated self-correction at the word level. However, he ignored
most of the errors in the passages. If he could not decode a word he would either make up a word
or skip the word. Myles did show some use o f self-correction at the word level. However, he
frequently skipped words he could not decode or would make up his own word as a replacement.
It was evident that the students with hyperlexia did not have well developed metacognitive skills.
Conversely, the two M I D students frequently made use of self-correction tactics. Harvey
would read over words he could not understand and would correct words that he had read
incorrectly immediately after making the error. Nelson was not as consistent as Harvey at using
self-correction techniques. However, he always attempted to sound out the words he could not
read and would ask what for help i f he could not read it after trying. Clearly, Harvey and Nelson
employed metacognitive tactics when reading for comprehension. Both students with M I D knew
the purpose for reading was to get meaning from the reading passage.
Limitations
A s in all research, this study had several limitations. Due to the small sample, the results
are not generalizable to all children with hyperlexia or all children with M I D . In order for any
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 93
generalizations to be made across the hyperlexic population, a larger scale study or more
replications would be necessary. However, this could be difficult to achieve since children with
hyperlexia are not easily identified or diagnosed. Another limitation of this study was the use of
the reading subtest of the brief form of the K - T E A to assess the participant's reading
comprehension. The brief form of the reading subtest of the K - T E A is weak in its ability to truly
assess a child's comprehension. The K - T E A confounds decoding and comprehension. The test is
organized in a way that a child who is good at decoding words can achieve a high "reading"
score, which includes decoding and comprehension. However, there is no real proof o f the
children's actual level of comprehension. Children who are not good decoders do not get past the
decoding of single words on the test to the comprehension items. A much better assessment of
reading comprehension is found in the Gates MacGinit ie Reading Test, which separates
decoding from reading comprehension immediately. However, it is quite expensive to acquire
and has not been widely used in other studies with hyperlexic children. It is also possible that
students with M I D might not be able to read some of the words on the Gates MacGinit ie Reading
Test. Perhaps, the next investigation into this area should use multiple reading and listening
comprehension assessments, in order to get a more accurate description of reading
comprehension in these children.
Additionally, since the investigator designed many o f the comprehension measures there
are potential weaknesses, such as the variance in length for passages between the pairs o f
participants. The M I D pair had very weak decoding skills and therefore the passages for them
were shorter in length compared to the passages for the hyperlexia pair. This could have made it
easier for the M I D group to achieve higher comprehension levels compared to the hyperlexia
group. Similarly, choosing graded passages for the participants at times called for a judgment to
be made by the investigator. However, most o f the passages were borrowed from informal
reading inventories then changed slightly to suit the particular assessment and were most likely
at the appropriate grade level.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 94
Future Directions
This investigation points to several avenues for future research in the area of hyperlexia
and reading comprehension. Initially, a replication and extension o f this study should be
completed with more participants and careful attention paid to the selection and design of
assessments. It is important to be confident that the results reported in this study are not due to
use o f particular assessment instruments or investigator bias. Furthermore, there is need for a
more detailed examination of the semantic processing of children with hyperlexia in order to
fully understand the severity of their comprehension deficit. Additionally, a study is required that
wi l l utilize the present information about the comprehension deficits in these children and
implement a program using metacognitive learning techniques. In addition, the study should also
consider each child's interests and what motivates them to learn. Finally, it would behoove
educational research to examine the improvements or lack of improvements in reading
comprehension when individualized lesson plans are created and used for each child based on
their interests and choices.
Conclusions
In review of the thesis questions in this study, children with hyperlexia appear to have a
distinct comprehension problem that is different from children with mild intellectual difficulties.
A s this study illustrated, comprehension in the two children with hyperlexia is not as skilled as
their matched participants with developmental delays. This suggests that the comprehension
deficit in children with hyperlexia is a phenomenon of the disorder and not of the cognitive
delay. To answer the main thesis question, "what accounts for the poor comprehension in
children with hyperlexia?" it is most probable that a multitude of variables, such as poor
language abilities, delayed cognition, lack of ability to monitor their own comprehension, and
difficulty activating schema combine to produce the reading comprehension problems children
with hyperlexia experience.
Snowling and Frith (1986) proposed that poor comprehension in children with hyperlexia
is not due to their low language levels or poor word knowledge. The results from this study
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 95
appear to confirm these author's conclusions. The direction for future studies in the area of
hyperlexia should further examine how much reading comprehension is affected by language
level. Although no definitive statements can be made regarding the specific underlying deficits in
comprehension in these children, it is apparent that studies such as this one help bring us closer
to a more complete understanding of the phenomenon o f hyperlexia.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 96
References
Aaron, P. G . , Frantz, S. S., & Manges, A . R. (1990). Dissociation between comprehension and
pronunciation in dyslexic and hyperlexic children. Reading and Writing: An
Interdisciplinary Journal, 2, 243-264.
Afflerbach, P. P. ((1990)). The influence of prior knowledge on expert readers' main idea
construction strategies. Reading Research Quarterly, 25, 31-46.
Alvermann, D . E . , Smith, L . C , & Readence, J. E . (1985). Prior knowledge activation and the
comprehension of compatible and incompatible text. Reading Research Quarterly, 20,
420-436.
Anderson, R. C. (1977). The notion of schemata and the education enterprise. In R. C . Anderson,
F. J. Spiro, & W . E . Montague (Eds.), Schooling and the acquisition of knowledge, (pp.
415-431). Hillsdale, N J : Erlbaum.
Anderson, R. C. (1994). Role of readers schema in comprehension, learning, and memory. In R.
B . Ruddell, M . R. Ruddell, and H . Singer (Eds.), Theoretical Models and Processes of
Reading (4 t h edition), (pp. 469-482), Newark, D W .
Anderson, J. R. (1990). Cognitive psychology and its implications. (2 n d edition). New York:
Freeman.
Anderson, R. C , & Pearson, P. D. (1984). A schema-theoretic view of basic processes in reading
comprehension. In P. D . Pearson, R. Barr, M . L . Kami l , & P. Mosenthal (Eds.),
Handbook of Research on Reading, (pp. 255-291). New York: Longman.
Anderson, R. C , & Pichert, J. W . (1978). Recall o f previously unrecallable information
following a shift in perspective. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 17, 1 -
12.
Anderson, R. C , Spiro, R. J., & Anderson, M . C. (1978). Schemata as scaffolding for the
representation of information in connected discourse. American Educational Research
Journal, 15 (3), 433-440.
Anderson, R. C , Reynolds, R. E . , Schallert, D . E . , & Goetz, E . T. (1977). Frameworks for
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 97
comprehending discourse. American Educational Research Journal, 14 (4), 367-381.
Aram, D . (1997). Hyperlexia: Reading without meaning in young children. Topics in Language
Disorders, 17 (3), 1-1,3.
Aram, D. , & Healy, J. M . (1988). Hyperlexia: A review of extraordinary word recognition. In L .
Obler & D . Fein (Eds.), Neuropsychology of Talent, (pp. 70-102). New York : Gilford
Press.
Aram, D. , Rose, D . F. , & Horwitz, S. J. (1984). Hyperlexia: Developmental reading without
meaning. In R. N . Malatesha & H . A . Whitaker (Eds.), Dyslexia: A Global Issue. The
Hague, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
Asher, S. R. (1979). Referential Communication. In G.J . Whitehurst, & B . J . Zimmerman (Eds.),
The Functions of Language and Communication, (pp. ). New York. Academic Press.
Baker, L . , & Brown, A . L . (1984). Metacognitive Skills and Reading. In P. B . Pearson, R. Barr,
M . L . K a m i l , & P. Mosenthal (Eds.), Handbook of Reading Research, (pp. 353-394).
White Plains, N Y : Longman.
Baldwin, R. S., Peleg-Bruckner, Z . , & McClintock, A . H . (1985). Effects of topic interest and
prior knowledge on reading comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly, 20, 497-504.
Bishop, D . V . M . (1983). Test for Reception of Grammar. Manchester: University of Manchester.
Boblett, F. C. (1932). Remembering. Cambridge: The Cambridge University Press.
Borkowski, J. G . , Johnston, M . B . , & Reid, M . K . (1987). Metacognition, motivation, and
controlled performance. In S. J. Ceci (Ed.), Handbook of Cognitive, Social, and
Neuropsychological Aspects of Learning Disabilities (pp. 147-173). Hillsdale, N J :
Lawrence Earlbaum Associates.
Bransford, J. D. , & Johnson, M . K . (1972). Contextual prerequisites for understanding. Some
investigations of comprehension and recall. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal
Behavior, 11, 717-726.
Brown, A . L . (1978). Knowing when, where, and how to remember: A problem of
metacognition. In R. Glaser (Ed.), Advances in Instructional Psychology (Vol.1), (pp. 77-
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 98
165). Hillsdale, N J : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Brown, A . L . (1980). Metacognitive development and reading. In R. J. Spiro, B . C. Bruce, & W .
F. Brewer (Eds.), Theoretical Issues in Reading Comprehension: From Research to
Practice, (pp. 453-481). Hillsdale, N J : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Carr, S. C , & Thompson, B . (1996). The effects of prior knowledge and schema activation
strategies on the inferential reading comprehension o f children with and without learning
disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly, 19, 48-61.
Cobrinik, L . (1974). Unusual reading ability in severely disturbed children. Journal of Autism
and Childhood Schizophrenia, 4 (2), 163-175.
Cobrinik, L . (1982). The performance of hyperlexic children on an "incomplete words" task.
Neuropsychologia, 20 (5), 569-577'.
Cossu, G . & Marshall, J. C . (1986). Theoretical implications of the hyperlexia syndrome. Two
new Italian cases. Cortex, 22, 579-589.
Cross, D . R., & Paris, S. G . (1988). Developmental and instructional analyses of children's
metacognition and reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80, 131-
142.
De Sousa, I., & Oakhill , J. (1996). Do levels of interest have an effect on children's
comprehension monitoring performance? British Journal of Educational Psychology, 66,
471-482.
Durrell, D . D . (1955). Durr ell Analysis of Reading Difficulty, New Edition. New York: Harcourt,
Brace.
Elliot, D . E. , & Needleman, R. M . (1976). The syndrome of hyperlexia. Brain and Language, 3,
339-349.
Flavell, J. H . (1978). Metacognitive development. In J. M . Scandura & C. J. Brainerd (Eds.),
Structural/process theories of complex human behavior, (pp. ) Alphen a. d. Rijn, The
Netherlands: Sijthoff & Noordhoff.
Flavell, J. H . (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new'area of cognitive-
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 99
developmental inquiry. American Psychologist, 34 (10), 906-911.
Fontanelle, S., & Alarcon, M . (1982). Hyperlexia: Precocious word recognition in
developmentally delayed children. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 55, 247-252.
Garner, R. (1980). Monitoring of understanding: A n investigation of good and poor readers'
awareness of induced miscomprehension of text. Journal of Reading Behavior, 12, 55-63.
Garner, R. (1987). Metacognition and Reading Comprehension. Norwood, N J : Ablex Publishing.
Garner, R. (1994). Metacognition and executive control. In R. B . Ruddell, M . R. Ruddell, & H .
Singer (Eds.), Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading. (4 t h ed.). (pp. 715 - 732).
Newark, D E : International Reading Association.
Garner, R., & Kraus, C . (1982). Good and poor comprehender differences in knowing and
regulating reading behaviors. Educational Research Quarterly, 6, 5-12.
Garner, R., & Reis, R. (1981). Monitoring and resolving comprehension obstacles: A n
investigation of spontaneous text lookbacks among upper-grade and poor comprehenders.
Reading Research Quarterly, 16, 569-582.
Garner, R., & Taylor, N . (1982). Monitoring o f understanding: A n investigation of attentional
assistance heeds at different grade and reading proficiency levels. Reading Psychology, 3,
1-6.
Garner, R., Wagoner, S., & Smith, T. (1983). Externalizing question-answering strategies of
good and poor comprehenders. Reading Research Quarterly, 18, 439-457.
Glosser, G . , Friedman, R. B . , & Roeltgen, D . P. (1996). Clues to cognitive organization of
reading and writing from developmental hyperlexia. Neuropsychology, 10 (2), 168-175.
Goldberg, T. E . , & Rothermel, R. D . (1984). Hyperlexic children reading. Brain, 107, 759-785.
Goldman, R., Fristoe, M . , & Woodcock, R. W . (1974). GFWSound-Symbol Tests. Circle Pines,
M N : American Guidance Service.
Goodman, J. (1972). A case study o f an "autistic-savant": Mental function in the psychotic child
with markedly discrepant abilities. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 13, 267-
278.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 100
Goodman, Y . A . , & Burke, C . L . (1972). Reading miscue inventory. New York : MacMi l l an .
Healy, J. M . , Aram, D . M . , Horwitz, S. J., & Kessler, J. W . (1982). A study of hyperlexia. Brain
and Language, 17, 1-17.
H id i , S. (1990). Interest and its contribution as a mental resource for learning. Review of
Educational Research, 60, 549-571.
Hiskey, M . S. (1966). Hiskey-Nebraska Test of Learning Aptitude: Manual. Lincoln, N E : Union
College Press.
Huttenlocher, R. R., & Huttenlocher, J. A study o f children with hyperlexia. Neurology, 23,
1107-1116.
Jastak, J. F., & Jastak, S. R. (1978). Wide Range Achievement Tests. Wilmington, D E : Guidance
Associates.
Kanner, L . (1943). Autistic disturbances of affective contact. Nervous Child, 2, 217-250.
Karlsen, B . , Madden, R., & Gardner, E . F. (1976). Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test. New York :
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Kinnunen, R., & Vauras, M . (1995). Comprehension monitoring and the level of comprehension
in high and low achieving primary school children's reading. Learning and Instruction, 5,
143-165.
Langer, J. A . , & Nicol ich , M . (1981). Prior knowledge and its relationship to comprehension.
Journal of Reading Behavior, 13, 373-379.
Leslie, L . , & Caldwell , J. (1990). Qualitative Reading Inventory. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman.
Mehegan, C. C , & Dreifus, R. E . (1972). Hyperlexia: Exceptional reading ability in brain
damaged children. Neurology, 22 (11), 1105-1 111.
Montague, M . , Maddux, C. D . , & Dereshiwsky, M . I. (1990). Story grammar and comprehension
and production o f narrative prose by students with learning disabilities. Journal of
Learning Disabilities, 23 (3), 190-197.
Munroe, M . (1932). Children who cannot read. Chicago: University o f Chicago Press.
Myers, M . , & Paris, S. G . (1978). Children's metacognitive.knowledge about reading. Journal of
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 101
Educational Psychology, 70 (5), 680-690.
Neuman, R. S. (1990). Children's help-seeking in the classroom: The role of motivational factors
and attitudes. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 71 -80.
Newcomer, P. L . , & Hammil l , D . O. (1977). The test of language development. Austin, T X :
Empiric Press.
Palmer, D . J . , & Goetz, E.T. (1988). Selection and the use of study strategies: The role of the
studier's beliefs about self and strategies. In C E . Weinstein, E . T. Goetz, & P. A .
Alexander (Eds.), Learning and study strategies: Issues in assessment, instruction, and
evaluation, (pp.41-61). San Diego, C A : Academic Press.
Paris, S. G . , & Jacobs, J. E . (1984). The benefits of informed instruction for children's reading
awareness and comprehension skills. Child Development, 55, 2083-2093.
Paris, S. G . , & Lindauer, B . K . (1982). The development of cognitive skills during childhood. In
Benjamin B . Wolman (Ed.), Handbook of Developmental Psychology. Englewood Cliffs,
N J : Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Paris, S. G . , & Myers, M . (1981). Comprehension monitoring, memory, and study strategies in
good and poor readers. Journal of Reading Behavior, 13 (1), 5-22.
Paris, S. G . , & Oka, E . R. (1986). Children's reading strategies, metacognition, and motivation.
Developmental Review, 6, 25-56.
Paris, S. G . , Cross, D . R., & Lipson, M . Y . (1984). Informed strategies for learning: A program
to improve children's reading awareness and comprehension. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 76(6), 1239-1252.
Paris, S. G . , Lipson, M . Y . , & Wixson, K . K . (1983). Becoming a strategic reader. Contemporary
Educational Psychology, 8, 293-316.
Paris, S. G . , Saarnio, D . A . , & Cross, D . R. (1986). A metacognitive curriculum to promote
children's reading and learning. Australian Journal of Psychology, 38, 107-123.
Paris, S. G. , Wasik, B . A . , & Turner, J . C . (1991). The development of strategic readers. In R.
Barr, M . L . Kami l , P. Mosenthal, & P. D- Pearson (Eds.), Handbook of Reading
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 102
Research. New York, N Y : Longman.
Patti, P. J., & Lupinetti, L . (1993). Br ie f report: Implications of hyperlexia in an autistic savant.
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 23 (2), 397-405.
Perry, N . (1998). Young children's self regulated learning and contexts that support it. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 90(4), 715-729.
Pressley, M . , Borkowski, J. G . , & O'Sullivan, J. (1985). Children's metamemory and the teaching
of memory strategies. In D . L . Forrest-Pressley, D . MacKinnon, and T. G . Waller (Eds.),
Metacognition, Cognition and Human Performance (pp. 111-153). New York: Academic
Press.
Richman, L . C , & Kitchell , M . M . (1981). Hyperlexia as a variant of a developmental language
disorder. Brain and Language, 12, 203-212.
Rumelhart, D . E . (1981). Schemata: The building blocks of cognition. In J. T. Guthrie (Ed.),
Comprehension and Teaching: Research Reviews, (pp. 3-26). Newark, D E : International
Reading Association.
Rumelhart, D . E . , & Ortony, A . (1977). The representation of knowledge in memory. In R. C.
Anderson, R. J. Spiro, & W . E . Montague (Eds.), Schooling and the acquisition of
knowledge, (pp. 99-136). Hillsdale, N J : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Seymour, P. H . K . , & Evans, H . M . (1992). Beginning reading without semantics. A cognitive
study of hyperlexia. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 9 (2), 89-122.
Shirey, L . L . , & Reynolds, R. E . (1988). Effects of interest on attention and learning. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 80(2), 159-166.
Siegel, L . S. (1984). A longitudinal study of a hyperlexic child: Hyperlexia as a language
disorder. Neuropsychologia, 22 (5), 577-585.
Silberberg, N . E . , & Silberberg, M . C. (1967). Hyperlexia: Specific word recognition skills in
young children. Exceptional Children, 34 (1), 41-42.
Silberberg, N . E . , & Silberberg, M . C. (1968-69). Case histories in hyperlexia. Journal of School
Psychology, 7 (1), 3-7.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 103
Silberberg, N . E., & Silberberg, M . C. (1971). Hyperlexia; The other end of the continuum. The
Journal of Special Education, 5 (3), 233-242.
Snider, V . E. (1989). Reading comprehension performance of adolescents with learning
disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly, 12, 87-96.
Snowling, M , & Frith, U . (1986). Comprehension in "hyperlexic" readers. Journal of
Experimental Child Psychology, 42, 392-415.
Temple, C. M . (1990). Auditory and reading comprehension in hyperlexia. Semantic and
syntactic skills. Reading and Writing. An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2, 297-306.
Terman, L . M . , & Merr i l l , M . A : (1960). Stanford-Binet intelligence scale: Manual for the third
revision, for L-M. Boston: Houghton Mif f l in Co.
Tirosh, E., & Canby, J. (1993). Autism with hyperlexia. A distinct syndrome? American Journal
on Mental Retardation, 98 (1), 84-92.
Tobias, S. (1994). Interest, prior knowledge, and learning. Review of Educational Research, 64,
37-54.
Turner, J. C. (1995). The influence of classroom contexts on young children's motivation for
literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 30, 410-441.
Wagoner, S. A . (1983). Comprehension monitoring: What is it and what we know about it.
Reading Research Quarterly, 28, 328-346.
Wechsler, D . (1949). Wechsler intelligence scale for children. New York : The Psychological
Corporation.
Wechsler, D . (1967). Wechsler preschool and primary scale of intelligence. New York : The
Psychological Corporation.
Wechsler, D . (1974). Wechsler intelligence scale for children - revised. New York: The
Psychological Corporation.
Welsh, M . C , Pennington, B . F., & Rogers, S. (1987). Word recognition and comprehension
skills in hyperlexic children. Brain and Language, 32, 76-96.
Whitehouse, D . , & Harris, J. C . (1984). Hyperlexia in infantile autism. Journal of Autism and
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 104
Developmental Disorders, 14 (3), 281-289.
Winne, P. H . (1998). Experimenting to bootstrap self-regulated learning. Journal of
Experimental Psychology, 89 (3), 397-410.
Wong, B . Y . L . (1991). The relevance o f metacognition to learning disabilities. In B . Y . L . Wong
(Ed.), Learning About Learning Disabilities, (pp. 231-258). San Diego, C A : Academic
Press.
Wong, B . Y . L . , & Jones, W . (1982). Increasing metacomprehension in learning-disabled and
normally-achieving students through self-questioning training. Learning Disability
Quarterly, 5, 228-240.
Wong, B . Y . L . , & Wong, R. (1986). Study behavior as a function o f metacognitve knowledge
about critical task variables: A n investigation of above average, average and learning
disabled readers. Learning Disabilities Research, 1 (12), 101-111.
Woodcock, R. W . (1973). Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests. Circle Pines, M N : American
Guidance Service.
Worthy, J., & Invernizzi, M . A . (1992). Linking reading with meaning: A case study o f a
hyperlexic reader. Journal of Reading Behavior, 27 (4), 585-603.
Zimmerman, B . J. (1990). Self-regulated learning and academic achievement: A n overview.
Educational Psychologist, 25, 3-17.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 106
Appendix A
C O N S E N T F O R M
I have read the letter describing Michele Lester's research for her Master's thesis titled, "Comprehension in Children with Hyperlexia," and the nature of my child's participation in it. 1 have discussed the project with my child and we understand that my child's participation is voluntary and confidential, and that s/he may withdraw from the project at any time without negative consequences.
M y signature indicates my desire for to participate in the
project.
Signature:
Date:
I do not wish to participate in this project.
Signature:
Date: In providing my signature above, I acknowledge that I have read the consent form and have kept a copy for my personal records.
I would like to receive a summary o f the results of Michele Lester's project.
Name:
Address:
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 107
Appendix B
Error Detection #1 (Hyperlexia)
The Desert: What Lives There Grd 2 Passage
The desert is a place that gets very little rainfall. The ground is often
s%*#y and rocky. When the sun beats down, the sand and r+#k grow hot
and dry. It is hard to imagine that a place like this is f*%l of living things.
A l l living things need food, w*A$r, and some kind of shelter to
survive. Some plants and animals are well suited to survive in the desert.
They can l%A*e off the food, water, and shelter that are there.
The cactus is one kind of plant that is s*A#d to survive in the desert.
The cactus has a special way of g*%$Ag water in the dry desert soil. It
spreads its roots out close to the top of the ground. When rain comes, the
cactus r*%ts soak up the water quickly before it drains deep into the sand.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 108
Appendix B
Questions for the Desert Passage
Passage Independent Questions
1) Is the desert a hot place?
2) Does it snow in the desert?
3) Is a cactus soft or prickly to touch?
Passage Dependent Questions
1) What is the ground like in the desert?
2) What do all living things need to survive?
3) Do many living things live in the desert?
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 109
Appendix C
Error Detection #1 (MID)
M y Cat Can
Where can Cat run?
Cat can %$&* to the mat.
Where can Cat #$**?
Cat #%&* run to the sac.
Cat can ~*%* to the cap.
Cat can run up, up, up to the *#$*.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 1 1 0
Appendix C
Questions for Error Detection #1
Passage Independent Questions
1. How many legs do cats have?
2. What sounds do cats make?
3. Can cats run fast?
Passage Dependent Questions
1. What did cat run to the first time in the story?
2. Where did cat run to the second time in the story?:
3. D i d cat run up, up, up or down, down, down?
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 111
Appendix D
Error Detection #2 (Hyperlexia)
Where is my Friend?
Harriet was looking for her friend. She climbed up a toog. She came
dute again. Harriet looked burpole two trees. So Harriet went toolum a
gate. She looked umkoop a rock. She flew oolum a hill. She went into a
ceer. Harriet climbed on a camsuch to look for her fiplid. Then she goor
off amelop. Then Harriet looked again, and tigop was her friend, right in
front of her nose.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 11
Appendix D
Comprehension Questions for Error Detection #1
Questions for Harriet Passage
Passage Independent Questions
1) What is a friend?
2) If you had to look for you friend, does that mean the friend was
lost?
3) If you had to look outside for your friend, where would you look?
Passage Dependent Questions
1) Who was Harriet looking for?
2) Where did Harriet climb?
3) What did Harriet get on top of?
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 113
Appendix E
Error Detection #2 (MID)
Where is it?
Where is the x ant?
Why can't we keek it?
The tant toop in the hill .
Where is the fox?
Why can't we geek it?
The tox went in the moog.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 114
Appendix E
Comprehension Questions for Error Detection #2: M I D
Passage Independent Questions:
1) Where do ants live?
2) Where do foxes live?
3) What are logs made from?
Passage Dependent Questions: 1) What did the ant go in?
2 ) Where did the fox go?
3) Can we see the ant or the fox?
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 115
Appendix F
Metacognitive Rating Scale (Hyperlexia and M I D )
(a)easy f
(b)a bit difficult, but o.k.
(c) really hard
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 116
Appendix G
Self-Correction Task: Difficult Vocabulary (Hyperlexia)
f w c %
The Three Beavers Brown
Once there were three Beavers Brown who lived in a chasm in the high mountains. A n
unfathomable creek ran through the valley. One day the three Beavers Brown
adjudicated to build a new lodge for the winter. They could discern some beautiful
birch trees on the other side of the creek, just perfect for building a lodge. First Little
Beaver Brown gamboled into the valley. Slip, slip, slap, slap went his tiny tail as he
began to swim. Impetuously a voice reverberated like thunder. "Who's that swimming
across my creek?" "It's only I, Little Beaver Brown. I want to get to the birch trees on
the other facet o f the creek." Out from his cave in the rocks emerged the Sasquatch.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 117
Appendix G
Comprehension Questions for Difficult Reading Task
Passage Independent Questions
1. What color is a beaver?
2. Where do beavers live?
3. Do Beavers have big or small teeth?
Passage Dependent Questions 1. The Beavers Brown lived in a chasm in the mountains, what does that look like?
2. Tell me what the Beavers saw across the creek?
3. What happened at the end of the story?
o i
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 11
Appendix H
Prior Knowledge Reading Task (Hyperlexia)
Freddie the Frog
Freddie is a frog. He lives in the water. He likes to swim. He also
likes to make loud noises - croak, croak! He likes to sit on a rock in the
sunshine. He likes to eat flies. Freddie swims in the water. When he is
hungry he eats a fly or bug. At night he goes to sleep on a log. When
Freddie was a baby frog he was called a tadpole. Tadpoles are baby frogs
that grow up to be grown-up frogs, like Freddy.
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 119
Appendix H
Prior Knowledge Task Comprehension Questions
Questions asked before reading the passage - passage independent
1) What color are frogs?
2) What do frogs do?
3) Where do frogs live?
Questions asked after reading the passage - passage dependent.
1) What is the frog's name in the story?
2) What sound did he make?
3) Where did he live?
4) Where did he like to sit and get some sunshine?
5) What are tadpoles?
Comprehension in Hyperlexia 120
Appendix I
High Interest Passage: Myles Passage (Hyperlexia)
Ice Hockey
Ice Hockey is a game played between two teams. It is played indoors or outdoors
on an ice rink. The players wear special uniforms and wear pads and helmets to protect
their heads. Jack is on a hockey team named the Sharks. The Sharks are going to play
against another team called the Lions.
The game is played with a rubber puck and a special stick. The players use their
sticks to get the puck into the other team's net. The sticks are made o f wood or medal
and have a curved blade at the bottom. The goaltender on the Sharks team, Sam, has a
special stick that is heavier and has a wider blade than the other player's sticks. The puck
is made of a hard black rubber and is shaped like a disc.
The game is started with a face-off at center ice and Jack fights for the puck. The
game is a close one. After the second period the Sharks are tied with the Lions, 2 to 2. If
the two teams are tied after the three periods then the teams play an overtime period.
Jack skates very fast and gets the puck away from the other team. Before the third period
ends - H E S C O R E S ! ! The Sharks won the game!
Comprehension in Hyperlexia
Appendix I
Comprehension Questions for High Interest Passage
Passage Independent Questions:
1. What is your favorite hockey team?
2. How many periods are in a game?
3. What do hockey players wear on their feet? ;
Passage Dependent Questions:
1. What is the name of the player who has a special hockey stick?
2. What are the names of the two teams?
3. When were the two teams tied?
top related