Can a Questionnaire Be Useful for Assessing Reading Skills in Adults? Experiences with the Adult Reading Questionnaire among Incarcerated and Young Adults in Norway

Background: Good screening tools can be of immense value in educational counselling for adults. We report two studies where we explored the factor structure and discriminative power Adult Reading Questionnaire (ARQ) different samples young adults at risk reading impairments. Method: The ARQ was designed to screen literacy skills with low resource requirement. instrument includes 11 questions regarding writing 6 attention deficits hyperactivity. first study included 246 undergraduate students. One-third sample were under assessment specific learning impairments/dyslexia. second 1475 incarcerated adults, 1 4 reported Results: Principal Component Analyses (PCA) varimax rotation returned four components participants Study 1: skills, habits, Attention, Hyperactivity. For 2, analysis three components, as Attention Hyperactivity items combined. Conclusion: is useful identifying individuals dyslexia acceptable measures sensitivity specificity, well those who difficulties but have not been assessed their earlier. increased prevalence attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) seen among must considered when problems it may confound scores on questionnaires.