TY - JOUR
T1 - Intact first- and second-order implicit sequence learning in secondary-school-aged children with developmental dyslexia
AU - Deroost, Natacha
AU - Zeischka, Peter
AU - Coomans, Daphne
AU - Bouzza, Said
AU - Depessemier, Pieter
AU - Soetens, Eric
PY - 2010/7/6
Y1 - 2010/7/6
N2 - We examined the influence of task complexity on implicit sequence learning in secondary-school-aged children with developmental dyslexia (DD). This was done to determine whether automatization problems in reading extend to the automatization of all skill and depend on the complexity of the to-be-learned skill. Twenty-eight dyslexic children between 12 to 15 years and 28 matched control children carried out two serial reaction time tasks using a First-Order Conditional (FOC) and Second-Order Conditional (SOC) sequence. In both tasks, children incidentally learned a sequence of hidden target positions, but whereas FOC sequence learning could be based on knowledge about the immediate preceding position, SOC sequence learning required more complex knowledge about the previous two positions. The results demonstrated that sequence learning was highly comparable in dyslexic and control children, regardless of the sequence complexity. This shows that implicit sequence learning, as manifested in the present study, is maintained in DD and unrelated to task complexity. We suggest that previous reports of sequence learning deficits in DD can be accounted for by attenuated explicit sequence learning, possibly related to malfunctions in prefrontal processing. The present findings indicate that deficits in skill learning and automatization in DD are not general in nature, but task-dependent.
AB - We examined the influence of task complexity on implicit sequence learning in secondary-school-aged children with developmental dyslexia (DD). This was done to determine whether automatization problems in reading extend to the automatization of all skill and depend on the complexity of the to-be-learned skill. Twenty-eight dyslexic children between 12 to 15 years and 28 matched control children carried out two serial reaction time tasks using a First-Order Conditional (FOC) and Second-Order Conditional (SOC) sequence. In both tasks, children incidentally learned a sequence of hidden target positions, but whereas FOC sequence learning could be based on knowledge about the immediate preceding position, SOC sequence learning required more complex knowledge about the previous two positions. The results demonstrated that sequence learning was highly comparable in dyslexic and control children, regardless of the sequence complexity. This shows that implicit sequence learning, as manifested in the present study, is maintained in DD and unrelated to task complexity. We suggest that previous reports of sequence learning deficits in DD can be accounted for by attenuated explicit sequence learning, possibly related to malfunctions in prefrontal processing. The present findings indicate that deficits in skill learning and automatization in DD are not general in nature, but task-dependent.
KW - developmental dyslexia
KW - implicit learning
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1080/13803390903313556
DO - https://doi.org/10.1080/13803390903313556
M3 - Article
VL - 32
SP - 561
EP - 572
JO - Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology
JF - Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology
SN - 1380-3395
IS - 6
ER -