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Part of
Developmental Perspectives in Written Language and Literacy: In honor of Ludo Verhoeven
Edited by Eliane Segers and Paul van den Broek
[Not in series 206] 2017
► pp. 315–331

Can poor readers be good learners?

Non-adjacent dependency learning in adults with dyslexia

| UU, Utrecht Institute of Linguistics
| UVA, Department of Child Development and Education
| UU, Utrecht Institute of Linguistics
This study aimed to test whether adults with dyslexia are impaired at non-adjacent dependency learning, and whether potential learning difficulties are domain-specific or not. Participants were familiarised with one of two artificial languages containing dependencies between the first and third element of a string of nonsense words, e.g. “tep wadim lut”. Dyslexic and non-dyslexic adults were equally good at learning the dependencies, although a trend towards a group difference was found when test sentences contained novel middle words, requiring generalisation of the pattern. The groups did not differ on learning dependencies between unfamiliar shapes in a visual experiment. These results provide tentative support for a domain-specific learning deficit for adults with dyslexia, suggesting that they may be poorer at generalizing from language input.
Keywords: dyslexia, non-adjacent dependency learning, artificial language learning, procedural deficit hypothesis, domain-generality
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Experiment 1a: Non-adjacent dependency learning with repeated test items
    • 2.1Methods
      • 2.1.1Participants
    • 2.2Stimuli
    • 2.3Procedure
    • 2.4Results
  • 3.Experiment 1b: Non-adjacent dependency learning with novel test items
    • 3.1Methods
      • 3.1.1Participants
    • 3.2Stimuli
    • 3.3Procedure
    • 3.4Results
    • 3.5Discussion
  • 4.Experiment 2: Visual non-adjacent dependency learning
    • 4.1Methods
      • 4.1.1Participants
    • 4.2Stimuli
    • 4.3Procedure
    • 4.4Results
    • 4.5Discussion
  • 5.General discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 21 December 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.206.19ker
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