Phonological reading skills acquisition by children with mental retardation.

Twenty children with mental retardation (MR), age 7-12, completed a phonological reading skills program over approximately 10 weeks. As a result of the instruction, they were better able to sound out learned and transfer words compared to a control group matched on age, IQ, nonword reading, language comprehension, and phonemic awareness. Final sounding out was predicted by beginning reading skill in both groups, by phonemic awareness and articulation speed in the control group only, and by general language ability in the instruction group only.

Abilities underlying decoding differences in children with intellectual disability.

Researchers in recent years have made much progress towards understanding why some children struggle to learn to read. However, little of this research has involved children with intellectual disability associated with an IQ < 70 (ID, also called mental retardation). In the present analysis, the authors examined cognitive similarities and differences between stronger and weaker decoders, all of whom have ID.