Project: Sentence Context Effects on Word Processing Among School-Aged Children in Honduras

Language processing accounts posit that spoken and written word predictability processes facilitate language comprehension, and prior research on contextual facilitation effects shows that individuals’ processing of a constrained word is faster and more accurate than that of an unconstrained word. However, studies involving participants with various levels of reading skills show that, compared to skilled readers, less-skilled readers rely heavily on context to recognize words due to weaknesses in reading skills. We recruited 177 third-to-sixth-grade children who were administered a listening and a reading task to examine the presence of context effects on reading and listening and whether these effects vary as a function of reading skills, cognitive skills, and age. Results indicated robust context effects on reaction times (RT) and accuracy in listening and reading. RT data showed that the facilitation prompted by constrained contexts reduced the processing cost between reading and listening. In addition, the magnitude of context effects on RT diminished with development. Accuracy data revealed that less-skilled readers showed larger context effects than skilled readers. Collectively, these findings indicated that less-skilled readers rely on context more than skilled readers to process words. Findings are discussed in the context of theoretical accounts of language processing and reading.