Project Title: Processing Abilities in Children with Reading Disabilities (Project 3 of Midwest Collaboration on Child Language Impairment) Principal Investigator: Susan Ellis Weismer, PhD This investigation involves a continuation of a longitudinal, epidemiologic study of developmental language impairment, the Midwest Collaboration on Child Language Impairment (Director: J.B. Tomblin, University of Iowa). The aim of this subcontract for Project 3 is to evaluate the role of limitations in processing capacity in children with reading disabilities by examining the relation between working memory capacity, oral language processing, and reading abilities. Performance on various linguistic and spatial working memory measures was assessed in 8th and 10th grades for poor readers and good readers, with children with reading comprehension deficits being considered separately from those with decoding difficulties. Data from these same children during the elementary school period is being used to determine the degree to which the children’s earlier performance on processing tasks can predict later reading abilities.

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