A cause is significant language deficiencies.

A cause is significant language deficiencies.

• A. Significant language deficiencies
• B. Deficient memory capacity and functioning
• C. Inadequate comprehension monitoring and self-evaluation
• D. Unfamiliarity with text features and task demands

Answer: (A)

Language abilities such as vocabulary, syntax, and semantic knowledge are what readers use to understand meaning in what they read. When someone has significant language deficiencies, these foundational skills are lacking, making it hard to access and interpret text, connect ideas across sentences, and build mental representations of what they read. That direct impact on understanding is why this option is the best explanation for the cause. Deficits in memory capacity can make it harder to hold and manipulate information while reading, but they don’t specifically target language understanding itself. Difficulties with comprehension monitoring and self-evaluation relate to metacognitive strategies—knowing when you don’t understand and how to fix it—but those challenges often arise from gaps in language knowledge rather than being the root cause. Unfamiliarity with text features and task demands points more to strategy use and test-taking familiarity than to a core language deficit underlying comprehension problems.

Language abilities such as vocabulary, syntax, and semantic knowledge are what readers use to understand meaning in what they read. When someone has significant language deficiencies, these foundational skills are lacking, making it hard to access and interpret text, connect ideas across sentences, and build mental representations of what they read. That direct impact on understanding is why this option is the best explanation for the cause.

Deficits in memory capacity can make it harder to hold and manipulate information while reading, but they don’t specifically target language understanding itself. Difficulties with comprehension monitoring and self-evaluation relate to metacognitive strategies—knowing when you don’t understand and how to fix it—but those challenges often arise from gaps in language knowledge rather than being the root cause. Unfamiliarity with text features and task demands points more to strategy use and test-taking familiarity than to a core language deficit underlying comprehension problems.