The Relationship between American Indian Students' Cognitive Processing and Their Reading Skills

American Indian students exhibit significant delays in academic skills and are at greater risk of school leaving or dropout than mainstream peers. A core component of these academic difficulties are persistent reading deficits across grades, but little research exists on the underlying foundation of these reading deficits. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine whether and to what degree overall intellectual ability as measured by the Cognitive Assessment System (CAS) full scale score as well as individual cognitive processing areas as measured by the CAS subscales--Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive (PASS)--were predictive of reading skills as measured by the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement, 3rd edition (WJ-III) reading composite and individual subtest scores. The study sample was comprised of 162 American Indian students attending a tribally-run elementary school in the southwestern United States. The data analysis involved simple linear regression for the CAS full scale scores and multiple linear regression CAS subscale scores. The simple linear regression results indicated the CAS full scale score was a significant predictor of all reading measures at the p < 0.001 level. The multiple regression analyses indicated the Successive processing subscale score was a significant predictor of all reading measures at the p < 0.001 level; the Planning processing subscale score was a significant predictor of comprehension measures at the p < 0.05 level. The results of this study supports prior research and may serve to inform the practice of school psychologists as well as other educators working with American Indian students. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]