Relationship between phonological working memory, metacognitive skills and reading comprehension in children with learning disabilities

Abstract Reading requires the activation of several cognitive processes, some of which are basic, e.g. recognizing letters and words, whereas others are complex, such as working memory and ability to think about one's own learning strategies. One condition for fulfilling a complex cognitive task, such as understanding a text, is the ability to maintain and process information, which depends on working memory. Objective To analyze the ability of using metacognitive strategies for reading, the phonological working memory of school children with learning disabilities, and also determine if there is relation between these skills and reading comprehension. Method The sample consisted of 30 school-age children and teenagers of both genders, aged 8 to 12 years, who were enrolled in primary school. They were divided in two groups, experimental (EG) and control (CG). All children were subjected to evaluation of reading comprehension, phonological working memory, and use of metacognitive skills for reading. The results were compared between groups through the Mann-Whitney test, and correlation between variables was analyzed through Spearman correlation test. Result Statistical comparison between EG and CG showed statistically significant difference. Positive and effective correlation was observed between reading comprehension, phonological working memory and metacognitive tests. Conclusion children with learning disabilities presented deficits in phonological working memory and use of metacognitive strategies. The positive and effective correlation between the abilities analyzed suggests that failure in the phonological working memory and use of metacognitive strategies interfere with reading comprehension.


Introduction
Reading requires the activation of several cognitive processes, such as recognizing letters and words, working memory, and the ability to think about one's own learning strategies.
One condition required to fulfill a complex cognitive task, such as understanding a text, is the ability to maintain and process information, which depends on working memory. One component of working memory is the phonological loop, whose function is temporarily storing linguistic information. 2 This phonological component of the working memory plays an important role in learning how to read, oral language comprehension, vocabulary acquisition, and reading comprehension. 5,12 The understanding of people about their own cognitive processing is called metacognition. 8 Metacognitive abilities correspond to a subsystem of control within the cognitive system, whose goal is to monitor, plan and regulate its processes, a high-level processing played by the executive function. 10 The role of metacognitive capacity on the learning processes is undisputable, and metacognitive learning strategies are procedures used by students to plan, monitor, and regulate their own thinking in order to acquire certain knowledge. 30 These strategies have been related with reading comprehension, as their use allows the reader to have more chance to understand texts compared to individuals who do not use them. 13,15 Good readers not only decode what they are reading, but also review and question the meanings of reading and try to determine the meaning of familiar words and concepts, aside from solving difficulties as they arise.
Reading difficulties presented by students may be caused by brain disorders related to the ability of learning to read and write, as observed in learning disabilities (LD). Learning disabilities is a broad term, indicating that a child's achievement is considerably below the expected threshold. The control group was composed of 15 school age children or teenagers with no language and learning impairments. As inclusion criteria, the students should The correct answers were added, and the total score was converted to a percentage of correct answers.
The child's performance was scored as described by and with difficulties, 44 to 57%), and deficient (bad reader, 30 to 43%; and terrible reader, below 30%).
The phonological working memory was assessed by the Nonword Repetition Test 11 , which evaluates the number of items the individual is able to retain and retrieve in memory, immediately after the oral presentation of a list of nonwords. An appropriate response is considered if the repetition is identical to that presented by the examiner, who is allowed to repeat every word only once.
The metacognitive strategies used for reading were evaluated by the Reading Strategies Scale -Fundamental Level I, 7

Issues
Factor Time 1) You imagine how the story will be by reading the title.

Results
The sample consisted of 30 children, the majority of whom were male (24 boys and 6 girls), who were equally divided in experimental and control groups, with mean age of 9.8 years, enrolled in the 3 rd to 6 th grades of primary public schools.

Discussion
Concerning the occurrence of learning difficulties, in Brazil and other developing countries, it is estimated that 40% to 42% of students in initial grades present these difficulties; among these, 4% to 6% present neurobiological disorders, 25 as observed with learning disabilities. In individuals with learning disabilities, problems for reading and writing may manifest more clearly during formal educational, even though its manifestations occur before the 1 st grade, especially at the first stages of primary school. Regarding the prevalence of this disorder, higher occurrence is observed in males, 23 which was also observed in this study.
Children with learning disabilities present inaccurate and slow reading, and this effort spent to the basic activity of decoding precludes them from establishing connections between the several elements of the text.
Several abilities constitute the basis of the learning process, including the phonological working memory.   In the Cloze test, children in the EG showed poor reading level or in need of additional aid. A bad performance in the Cloze test indicates that the reader, even with aid, presents difficulty in using contextual 2018;26:e20170414 7/8 clues or activating previous knowledge in order to understand the text. 14 Accomplishment of the Cloze activity assumes that reading comprehension results from underlying cognitive processes that include not only the decoding of symbols and perception of clues inside the text, but also the retrieval of previous knowledge from within the memory, an ability that may be impaired in children with learning disabilities.

Text comprehension PROLEC
In the Prolec text comprehension subtest, children with learning disabilities presented worse performance in inferential questions compared to literal questions.
Conversely, the performance of the control group was similar for both question types (Table 1)  Similarly, the exploitation of metacognitive abilities, both in the clinical and educational environments, would certainly be beneficial for children presenting some type of learning disorder or difficulty. Many children will learn to read and write without any difficulty, yet others will require help to achieve success in the same activity.

Declaration of interest
The authors report no declarations of interest.