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Updated: Jul 28, 2025

Using Cholesky Decomposition to Explore Individual Differences in Longitudinal Relations between Reading Skills
Published on: September 17, 2019
Maternal education as an environmental factor related to reading in children with reading difficulties: A functional
Paige Greenwood1, John Hutton1, Jonathan Dudley1
1Reading and Literacy Discovery Center, Pediatric Neuroimaging Research Consortium, Imaging Research Center, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.
Abstract:
The expanded simple view of reading (SVR) model suggests that word decoding, language comprehension and executive functions are necessary for reading comprehension. Children with reading difficulties (RDs) often have deficits in critical components of reading established in the expanded SVR model and alterations in brain function of reading-related regions. Maternal education could provide children with advantageous educational opportunities or resources that support reading acquisition. The primary goal of this study was to examine the contributions of maternal education to the behavioural and neurobiological correlates of the expanded SVR model. Seventy-two 8- to 12-year-old children with RDs and typical readers (TRs) completed reading, behavioural and an functional magnetic resonance imaging stories-listening task to determine the functional connectivity of the receptive language network to the whole brain in association with maternal education. Higher maternal education was associated with better vocabulary in children with RDs and positive functional connectivity between the receptive language network and regions related to visual processing in children with RDs versus TRs. These data suggest that maternal education supports the ability to comprehend oral language and engagement of neural networks that support imagination/visualization in children with RDs.
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