Working Memory Profiles of Children With Dyslexia, Developmental Language Disorder, or Both

Purpose: Compared to children with typical development, children with dyslexia, developmental language disorder (DLD), or both often demonstrate working memory deficits. It is unclear how pervasive the deficits are or whether the deficits align with diagnostic category. The purpose of this study was to determine whether different working memory profiles would emerge on a comprehensive battery of central executive, phonological, visuospatial, and binding working memory tasks and whether these profiles were associated with group membership. Method: Three hundred two 2nd graders with typical development, dyslexia, DLD, or dyslexia/DLD completed 13 tasks from the Comprehensive Assessment Battery for Children-Working Memory (Gray, Alt, Hogan, Green, & Cowan, n.d.) that assessed central executive, phonological, and visuospatial/attention components of working memory. Results: Latent class analyses yielded 4 distinct latent classes: low overall (21%), average with high number updating (30%), average with low number updating (12%), and high overall (37%). Children from each disability group and children from the typically developing group were present in each class. Discussion: Findings highlight the importance of knowing an individual child's working memory profile because working memory profiles are not synonymous with learning disabilities diagnosis. Thus, working memory assessments could contribute important information about children's cognitive function over and above typical psychoeducational measures.