| Despite relative strengths in rote verbal learning, word decoding, and verbal expression, children with Nonverbal Learning Disability (NLD) may experience difficulties with visual-spatial cognition, visual memory, arithmetic, language pragmatics, social skills, and adaptive behavior. This study investigated discourse comprehension as another area of possible weakness. Although there is theoretical reason to suspect such difficulties, few studies have examined this area of functioning. Fourteen children who met a set of pre-established criteria for NLD were compared to a group of 14 non-learning disabled children who were matched with children in the NLD group on age, sex, and Verbal IQ. Participants completed a battery of tests that measured basic reading skills, reading comprehension, memory, narrative expression, and literal and deep comprehension of familiar and novel stories. Regression analyses were used to examine between-group differences and to identify factors that predicted comprehension. As hypothesized, the comparison group outperformed the NLD group on measures of reading comprehension, visual memory, learning memory, and deep comprehension of the novel story. Hypotheses that there would be no between-group differences in reading rate, reading accuracy, and verbal memory were also supported. Between-group differences on some, but not all, of the comprehension measures could be attributed, in part, to the relative weakness of the NLD group on measures of visual-spatial cognition and visual memory. The combination of factors that best predicted reading comprehension scam differed between-groups, but Verbal IQ was a significant predictor in both. Other results did not support study hypotheses: between-group differences on reading comprehension could not be attributed to differential performance on inferential, affective, and literal question types or to developmental level; the groups were not equivalent in literal comprehension of the familiar and novel stories; the NLD group did not outperform the comparison group on narrative productivity; and the comparison group did not outperform the NLD group on narrative economy or deep comprehension of the familiar story. Results were interpreted as adding clarity to the clinical picture of NLD and furthering understanding of factors that predict discourse comprehension in normal and learning-dissabled readers. |
