Learning to Read After Schooling Disruptions: Neurocognitive Correlates of Reading Comprehension in Syrian Refugee Children and Youth

We examined the development of reading comprehension and its neural underpinnings in the context of disrupted education among Syrian refugee children and youth resettled in Canada. One hundred participants (Mage = 13.78, SD = 2.55) completed standardized assessments of language comprehension, decoding, and reading comprehension, and participated in functional near-infrared spectroscopy while completing a decoding task. Consistent with the Simple View of Reading (SVR), both language comprehension and decoding significantly predicted reading comprehension. However, the relative role of language comprehension and decoding to reading comprehension differed depending on the extent of educational disruptions experienced during displacement and migration. Decoding predicted reading comprehension for children with minimal education disruptions. However, when educational disruptions were longer due to prolonged displacement, the relation between decoding and reading comprehension was limited, and instead, the relation between language comprehension and reading comprehension was greater. These results suggested that in the context of limited formal literacy instruction during displacement, language comprehension may assume a compensatory function for poor decoding ability. Neuroimaging showed that greater activation in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) predicted better reading comprehension, suggesting compensatory recruitment beyond the typical left-lateralized reading network. Cluster analyses identified distinct reading profiles that were predicted by neural activation patterns and educational disruption. Children with the highest reading comprehension scores showed greater right IFG activation and lower activation in the supramarginal gyrus (SMG)–a region associated with decoding. Our study extends the SVR by demonstrating that the contribution of decoding and language comprehension to reading comprehension depends on educational experience, and that multiple neural pathways can support reading comprehension after educational disruption. Practically, these results highlight the need for individualized reading interventions and the urgency of minimizing educational disruption for displaced children and youth.