Cognitive Processes and Their Relation to Word Reading, Comprehension, and Math Competence in A Sample of School Children Who Live in Poverty

The present paper reports an investigation into the structure of the relationship between cognitive processes on the one hand, and Reading and Math competence on the other within a neurocognitive frame-work (Planning, Attention, Simultaneous and Successive processing, PASS). The participants were children in Grades 4 and 5 from a school located in a low-SES region of Odisha, India. All of them were English Language Learners whose mother tongue was Odia. Structural Equation modelling showed that Word decoding was best predicted by a latent factor comprising Planning, and Successive and Simultaneous processes, whereas Comprehension was better explained by Successive and Simultaneous processing. Math competence was best predicted by Simultaneous processing and to a lesser extent by Planning. These results were weakened by the deleterious effects of chronic poverty that included lack of exposure to English language and reading materials. In spite of this limitation, broad relationship between PASS processes on the one hand, and Reading and Math achievement on the other, replicated previous findings as noted in a metaanalysis. That lead us to suggest a reason based on the basic universality of structure and functions of the brain.