The purpose of this study was to analyze the characteristics of reading comprehension
and working memory of children with visual impairments compared to sighted children. In
this study, 29 students with visual impairments in special schools for the blind and 33
sighted students in regular elementary school were assessed their reading comprehension,
vocabulary, and working memory ability. The results are as follows: First, there are no
significant differences among the grades in the reading comprehension, vocabulary, and
working memory. However, there are statistically significant differences between children
with low vision and sighted children in inferential comprehension and visuo-spatial
sketchpad. Secondly, the working memory predicted unique variance in reading
comprehension after vocabulary has been taken into account in children with visual
impairments and sighted children. Particularly, central executive and phonological loop for
children with blindness, visuo-spatial sketchpad for children with low-vision, and central
executive and visuo-sketchpad for sighted children predicted unique variance in fact
comprehension. In addition, central executive predicted unique variance precited unique
variance in inferential comprehension for all groups. And visuo-spatial for children with
blindness and phonological loop for children with low vision predicted unique variance in
inferential comprehension. Discussions and implications for future research were presented.