Is that a pibu or a pibo? Children with reading and language deficits show difficulties in learning and overnight consolidation of phonologically similar pseudowords

Abstract

Word learning is critical for the development of reading and language comprehension skills. Although previous studies have indicated that word learning is compromised in children with reading disability (RD) or developmental language disorder (DLD), it is less clear how word learning difficulties manifest in children with comorbid RD and DLD. Furthermore, it is unclear whether word learning deficits in RD or DLD include difficulties with offline consolidation of newly learned words. In the current study, we employed an artificial lexicon learning paradigm with an overnight design to investigate how typically developing (TD) children (N = 25), children with only RD (N = 93), and children with both RD and DLD (N = 34) learned and remembered a set of phonologically similar pseudowords. Results showed that compared to TD children, children with RD exhibited: (i) slower growth in discrimination accuracy for cohort item pairs sharing an onset (e.g. pibu‐pibo), but not for rhyming item pairs (e.g. pibu‐dibu); and (ii) lower discrimination accuracy for both cohort and rhyme item pairs on Day 2, even when accounting for differences in Day 1 learning. Moreover, children with comorbid RD and DLD showed learning and retention deficits that extended to unrelated item pairs that were phonologically dissimilar (e.g. pibu‐tupa), suggestive of broader impairments compared to children with only RD. These findings provide insights into the specific learning deficits underlying RD and DLD and motivate future research concerning how children use phonological similarity to guide the organization of new word knowledge.

Word Learning by Preschool-Age Children With Developmental Language Disorder: Impaired Encoding and Robust Consolidation During Slow Mapping

“…When exposed to novel words through an incidental learning paradigm, preschool-age children with DLD demonstrated poorer retention than their peers (Rice et al, 1994). In a more recent study, third-and fourth-grade children with DLD demonstrated poorer retention of word learning than their peers when tested the following day (Malins et al, 2020). Children's phonological representations of forms were more stringently tested in this study than is typical for word learning studies.…”

“…During sleep, representations of the form, meaning, and link can be consolidated successfully in that they are strengthened and maintained (Henderson et al, 2012). Consolidation can be less successful, in that after a period of sleep, children remember less about a word than they did before sleep (Malins et al, 2020). Consolidation can also be unsuccessful when encoded representations are forgotten completely (Storkel, 2015).…”

Spoken Word Learning in Children With Developmental Language Disorder or Dyslexia

“…With some exceptions (e.g., Alt et al, 2017Alt et al, , 2019Kamhi et al, 1990;Malins et al, 2020), the comorbidity between DLD and dyslexia has been largely ignored in word learning studies, which complicates the understanding of word learning difficulties in each disorder. To our knowledge, there are only two prior studies that have examined the word learning abilities of children with DLD + dyslexia as compared to children with dyslexia with average language skills (dyslexia-only) and TD children (Alt et al, 2019;Malins et al, 2020). Alt et al (2019) taught second-grade children with DLD + dyslexia, dyslexia-only, and TD the pseudoword names and semantic features of novel objects in six games (i.e., conditions) that manipulated phonological or visuospatial features such as pseudoword length or visual similarity of the novel object referents.…”

Spoken Word Learning in Children with Developmental Language Disorder or Dyslexia

“…With some exceptions (e.g., Alt et al, 2017Alt et al, , 2019Kamhi et al, 1990;Malins et al, 2020) the comorbidity between DLD and dyslexia has been largely ignored in word learning studies, which complicates the understanding of word learning difficulties in each disorder. To our knowledge, there are only two prior studies that have examined the word learning abilities of children with DLD+dyslexia as compared to children with dyslexia with average language skills (dyslexia-only) and TD children (Alt et al, 2019;Malins et al, 2020).…”

“…With some exceptions (e.g., Alt et al, 2017Alt et al, , 2019Kamhi et al, 1990;Malins et al, 2020) the comorbidity between DLD and dyslexia has been largely ignored in word learning studies, which complicates the understanding of word learning difficulties in each disorder. To our knowledge, there are only two prior studies that have examined the word learning abilities of children with DLD+dyslexia as compared to children with dyslexia with average language skills (dyslexia-only) and TD children (Alt et al, 2019;Malins et al, 2020). Alt and colleagues (2019) taught second-grade children with DLD+dyslexia, dyslexia-only, and TD the pseudoword names and semantic features of novel objects in six games (i.e., conditions) that manipulated phonological or visuospatial features such as pseudoword length or visual similarity of the novel object referents.…”