Imagine you’re trying to learn new words by associating them with pictures. Sounds simple, right? But for individuals with developmental dyslexia (DD), this language-learning challenge becomes more complex. A recent study explored the impact of DD on cross-situational word learning, which involves discovering word-referent mappings without explicit instructions. The results showed that young adults with DD were significantly impaired in their ability to exploit regularities in visual-auditory streams to learn word-referent mappings. These impairments were most pronounced when the reference uncertainty was high within a trial. Interestingly, the TD group demonstrated greater development of implicit knowledge compared to the DD group. This suggests that individuals with DD rely more on explicit processes due to difficulties with implicit associative learning. These findings have implications for spoken language acquisition and literacy skills in individuals with DD. To delve deeper into this fascinating research, check out the full article!

Abstract
Although statistical learning (SL) has been studied extensively in developmental dyslexia (DD), less attention has been paid to other fundamental challenges in language acquisition, such as cross-situational word learning. Such investigation is important for determining whether and how SL processes are affected in DD at the word level. In this study, typically developed (TD) adults and young adults with DD were exposed to a set of trials that contained multiple spoken words and multiple pictures of individual objects, with no information about word-referent correspondences provided within a trial. Nonetheless, cross-trial statistical relations could be exploited to learn word-referent mappings. The degree of within-trial reference uncertainty and the novelty of to-be-learned objects (novel or familiar) were varied under different learning conditions. The results show that across all conditions, young adults with DD were significantly impaired in their ability to exploit cross-trial regularities in co-occurring visual–auditory streams to discover word-referent mappings. Observed impairments were most pronounced when within-trial reference uncertainty was the highest. Subjective measures of knowledge awareness revealed greater development of implicit but not explicit knowledge in the TD group than in the DD group. Together, these findings suggest that the SL deficit in DD affects fundamental language learning challenges at the word level and points to greater reliance on explicit processes due to impaired implicit associative learning among individuals with DD. Such a deficit is likely to influence spoken language acquisition, and in turn affect literacy skills, in people with DD.

Read Full Article (External Site)