How Semantic Memory Impacts Narrative Comprehension in Children With Developmental Dyslexia

Abstract

In the present study, we examined the differential contribution of semantic knowledge—specifically taxonomic and thematic—to narrative text comprehension in children with developmental dyslexia (DD) aged 8–10 years. Taxonomic knowledge refers to stimuli that are ontologically and logically related, hierarchically organised, linguistically encoded and independent of spatial or temporal links (e.g., the superordinate category animal with members such as lion, dog, or eagle). In contrast, thematic organisation involves stimuli that are related through contextual associations (e.g., meat, knife and fork). Sixty-two children with DD and a control group completed a fluid intelligence test, a semantic working memory task and a narrative text comprehension task. The results showed that taxonomic knowledge was associated with text comprehension only in the control group. Conversely, in the DD group, thematic knowledge predominantly supported comprehension. Overall, these findings contribute to a more detailed understanding of the cognitive and learning profile of children with DD and align with recent research on the relationship between semantic representations, linguistic knowledge and reading comprehension in learning disorders, beyond word decoding difficulties.