Reading Comprehension in Children With and Without ASD: The Role of Word Reading, Oral Language, and Working Memory.

The sample was small, and one child with autism was excluded from the final regression models. The participants were mostly white, and the groups differed in sex, so the results may not apply broadly. The study excluded children with nonverbal cognition below 85, uncorrected hearing or vision problems, chromosomal abnormalities, cerebral palsy, other disorders, and non-native English speakers. The children with autism had average nonverbal cognition and language abilities, so the findings do not show what happens for children with autism and lower language or working-memory abilities. Reading comprehension was measured with short cloze passages that did not require inferencing across sentences, so working memory may matter more for other comprehension tasks. The working-memory tasks were visual 2-back tasks, not auditory or sentence-based tasks, so they may not capture everyday memory load. Language and working-memory measures were collected at a different timepoint from reading measures, and older children tended to have longer gaps between visits.

The authors declared no conflicts of interest.

Do not conclude that working memory causes reading comprehension problems in autism or that working-memory training will help. The study was observational, and working memory did not predict reading comprehension after age, word reading, vocabulary and group membership were included.