Inhibition shows moderate to large associations with reading comprehension in most studies, but the association depends on the inhibition task used¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · quant-synthesis r? · q2
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Five of eight studies reported moderate to large inhibition-reading comprehension associations, strongest for response inhibition tasks paired with cloze-style assessments. → Ting Zhou 2026 q2 i? With the same WJ Passage Comprehension measure, one inhibition task yielded a negligible association while another yielded a moderate association. → Ting Zhou 2026 (2)

Evidence¶

Ting Zhou 2026¶

Ting Zhou, Thuy Anh Nguyen, Aprezo Pardodi Maba, Damon Thomas, Young-Suk Grace Kim, Elizabeth J. Edwards. (2026). Executive Functions and Reading in Children: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-026-10160-5

q2 · i? · quant-synthesis · r?

Qualitative synthesis of eight inhibition-reading comprehension studies: "Five out of eight studies reported moderate to large associations", strongest when response inhibition tasks were paired with cloze-style comprehension assessments; no effect sizes are printed for this summary.

"Five out of eight studies reported moderate to large associations, with stronger associations typically observed when response inhibition tasks (e.g., NEPSY-II) were paired with cloze-style assessments like WJ Passage Comprehension (Barber et al., 2020)."

Ting Zhou 2026 (2)¶

Ting Zhou, Thuy Anh Nguyen, Aprezo Pardodi Maba, Damon Thomas, Young-Suk Grace Kim, Elizabeth J. Edwards. (2026). Executive Functions and Reading in Children: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-026-10160-5

q2 · i? · quant-synthesis · r?

Within-study contrast (Hernández et al., 2018): with the same WJ Passage Comprehension subtest, the Continuous Performance Task gave a negligible association while the Head-Toes, Knees-Shoulders task gave a moderate one, implicating task differences.

"when response inhibition was indexed by the Continuous Performance Task and reading comprehension was assessed using the WJ Passage Comprehension subtest, the association was negligible."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Associations between inhibition and word reading are task-dependent, ranging from negligible to large (r = .59) — related
• Early interference suppression, but not response inhibition, correlates with emergent literacy measures in both 4–5- and 5–6-year-old subsamples — related
• In toddlerhood, interference suppression correlates with expressive vocabulary after controlling for age, whereas response inhibition does not — related
• Response inhibition shows small to moderate associations with listening comprehension (r = .16 to .42), based on only two studies — related
• Shifting is moderately to strongly associated with reading comprehension, with large associations when reading-specific shifting tasks are paired with literal comprehension measures — related