Reading Comprehension Difficulties in Normally Developing Children

Abstract

This chapter explores the challenges that normally developing children encounter when they read ambiguous text. Ambiguities arise when words, phrases, or sentences can be interpreted in more than one possible way and can significantly influence children's ability to grasp the intended meaning of the text. The chapter first explores the skills and processes that are involved in normal reading comprehension. This includes the importance of explicit and implicit anaphors that facilitate the understanding of the written text. The discussion is then moved to the impact of ambiguities on reading comprehension by examining the available literature on referential ambiguities, quantifiers, numerically quantified expressions, and scalar implicatures. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the general linguistic and cognitive factors that affect ambiguity resolution.