Impaired Statistical Learning in Developmental Dyslexia

Overview

Journal J Speech Lang Hear Res

Date 2015 Apr 11

PMID 25860795

Citations 58

Authors

Yafit Gabay

Erik D Thiessen

Lori L Holt

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Purpose: Developmental dyslexia (DD) is commonly thought to arise from phonological impairments. However, an emerging perspective is that a more general procedural learning deficit, not specific to phonological processing, may underlie DD. The current study examined if individuals with DD are capable of extracting statistical regularities across sequences of passively experienced speech and nonspeech sounds. Such statistical learning is believed to be domain-general, to draw upon procedural learning systems, and to relate to language outcomes.

Method: DD and control groups were familiarized with a continuous stream of syllables or sine-wave tones, the ordering of which was defined by high or low transitional probabilities across adjacent stimulus pairs. Participants subsequently judged two 3-stimulus test items with either high or low statistical coherence as being the most similar to the sounds heard during familiarization.

Results: As with control participants, the DD group was sensitive to the transitional probability structure of the familiarization materials as evidenced by above-chance performance. However, the performance of participants with DD was significantly poorer than controls across linguistic and nonlinguistic stimuli. In addition, reading-related measures were significantly correlated with statistical learning performance of both speech and nonspeech material.

Conclusion: Results are discussed in light of procedural learning impairments among participants with DD.

Citing Articles

Neural tracking of auditory statistical regularities in adults with and without dyslexia.

Ringer H, Sammler D, Daikoku T Cereb Cortex. 2025; 35(2).

PMID: 40037410 PMC: 11879346. DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaf042.

Sequence order resolves ambiguity in a nonlinguistic visual categorization task.

Antoun A, Wilson B Atten Percept Psychophys. 2024; 87(2):565-576.

PMID: 39725817 DOI: 10.3758/s13414-024-02989-1.

Reduced benefit from long-term item frequency contributes to short-term memory deficits in dyslexia.

Kimel E, Daikhin L, Jakoby H, Ahissar M Mem Cognit. 2024; 52(8):1928-1940.

PMID: 38956011 PMC: 11588939. DOI: 10.3758/s13421-024-01601-z.

Semantic and Syntactic Predictions in Reading Aloud: Are Good Predictors Good Statistical Learners?.

Gavard E, Ziegler J J Cogn. 2024; 7(1):40.

PMID: 38737818 PMC: 11086592. DOI: 10.5334/joc.363.

Contribution of statistical learning in learning to read across languages.

Ren J, Wang M PLoS One. 2024; 19(3):e0298670.

PMID: 38527080 PMC: 10962809. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0298670.

References

Goschke T, Friederici A, Kotz S, van Kampen A . Procedural learning in Broca's aphasia: dissociation between the implicit acquisition of spatio-motor and phoneme sequences. J Cogn Neurosci. 2001; 13(3):370-88. DOI: 10.1162/08989290151137412. View

Shohamy D, Myers C, Onlaor S, Gluck M . Role of the basal ganglia in category learning: how do patients with Parkinson's disease learn?. Behav Neurosci. 2004; 118(4):676-86. DOI: 10.1037/0735-7044.118.4.676. View

Brookes R, Nicolson R, Fawcett A . Prisms throw light on developmental disorders. Neuropsychologia. 2007; 45(8):1921-30. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2006.11.019. View

Doyon J, Penhune V, Ungerleider L . Distinct contribution of the cortico-striatal and cortico-cerebellar systems to motor skill learning. Neuropsychologia. 2002; 41(3):252-62. DOI: 10.1016/s0028-3932(02)00158-6. View

Frost R, Siegelman N, Narkiss A, Afek L . What predicts successful literacy acquisition in a second language?. Psychol Sci. 2013; 24(7):1243-52. PMC: 3713085. DOI: 10.1177/0956797612472207. View

Pothos E, Bailey T . The role of similarity in artificial grammar learning. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2000; 26(4):847-62. DOI: 10.1037//0278-7393.26.4.847. View

Kita Y, Yamamoto H, Oba K, Terasawa Y, Moriguchi Y, Uchiyama H . Altered brain activity for phonological manipulation in dyslexic Japanese children. Brain. 2013; 136(Pt 12):3696-708. PMC: 3916739. DOI: 10.1093/brain/awt248. View

Pavlidou E, Williams J . Implicit learning and reading: insights from typical children and children with developmental dyslexia using the artificial grammar learning (AGL) paradigm. Res Dev Disabil. 2014; 35(7):1457-72. DOI: 10.1016/j.ridd.2014.03.040. View

Stoel-Gammon C . Relationships between lexical and phonological development in young children. J Child Lang. 2010; 38(1):1-34. DOI: 10.1017/S0305000910000425. View

10.

Fiser J, Aslin R . Unsupervised statistical learning of higher-order spatial structures from visual scenes. Psychol Sci. 2002; 12(6):499-504. DOI: 10.1111/1467-9280.00392. View

11.

Schapiro A, Gregory E, Landau B, McCloskey M, Turk-Browne N . The necessity of the medial temporal lobe for statistical learning. J Cogn Neurosci. 2014; 26(8):1736-47. PMC: 4264662. DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_00578. View

12.

Evans J, Saffran J, Robe-Torres K . Statistical learning in children with specific language impairment. J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2009; 52(2):321-35. PMC: 3864761. DOI: 10.1044/1092-4388(2009/07-0189). View

13.

Paulesu E, Frith U, Snowling M, Gallagher A, Morton J, Frackowiak R . Is developmental dyslexia a disconnection syndrome? Evidence from PET scanning. Brain. 1996; 119 ( Pt 1):143-57. DOI: 10.1093/brain/119.1.143. View

14.

Saffran J, Johnson E, Aslin R, Newport E . Statistical learning of tone sequences by human infants and adults. Cognition. 1999; 70(1):27-52. DOI: 10.1016/s0010-0277(98)00075-4. View

15.

Wilson A, Lesaux N . Persistence of phonological processing deficits in college students with dyslexia who have age-appropriate reading skills. J Learn Disabil. 2004; 34(5):394-400. DOI: 10.1177/002221940103400501. View

16.

Seidenberg M, McClelland J . A distributed, developmental model of word recognition and naming. Psychol Rev. 1989; 96(4):523-68. DOI: 10.1037/0033-295x.96.4.523. View

17.

Maddox W, Ashby F . Dissociating explicit and procedural-learning based systems of perceptual category learning. Behav Processes. 2004; 66(3):309-32. DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2004.03.011. View

18.

McClelland J, Patterson K . Rules or connections in past-tense inflections: what does the evidence rule out?. Trends Cogn Sci. 2002; 6(11):465-472. DOI: 10.1016/s1364-6613(02)01993-9. View

19.

Nicolson R, Fawcett A, BERRY E, Jenkins I, Dean P, Brooks D . Association of abnormal cerebellar activation with motor learning difficulties in dyslexic adults. Lancet. 1999; 353(9165):1662-7. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(98)09165-X. View

20.

Conway C, Pisoni D . Neurocognitive basis of implicit learning of sequential structure and its relation to language processing. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2008; 1145:113-31. PMC: 2605665. DOI: 10.1196/annals.1416.009. View