Short-term memory for order but not for item information is impaired in developmental dyslexia

Abstract

Recent findings suggest that people with dyslexia experience difficulties with the learning of serial order information during the transition from short- to long-term memory (Szmalec et al. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition 37(5): 1270-1279, 2011). At the same time, models of short-term memory increasingly incorporate a distinction of order and item processing (Majerus et al. Cognition 107: 395-419, 2008). The current study is aimed to investigate whether serial order processing deficiencies in dyslexia can be traced back to a selective impairment of short-term memory for serial order and whether this impairment also affects processing beyond the verbal domain. A sample of 26 adults with dyslexia and a group of age and IQ-matched controls participated in a 2 × 2 × 2 experiment in which we assessed short-term recognition performance for order and item information, using both verbal and nonverbal material. Our findings indicate that, irrespective of the type of material, participants with dyslexia recalled the individual items with the same accuracy as the matched control group, whereas the ability to recognize the serial order in which those items were presented appeared to be affected in the dyslexia group. We conclude that dyslexia is characterized by a selective impairment of short-term memory for serial order, but not for item information, and discuss the integration of these findings into current theoretical views on dyslexia and its associated dysfunctions.

Short‐term Memory in Childhood Dyslexia: Deficient Serial Order in Multiple Modalities

“…The findings regarding dyslexia seem in keeping with limited previous work supporting the notion that serial order memory is impaired compared to typically-developing individuals (Hachmann et al, 2014; Laasonen et al, 2012; Martinez Perez et al, 2013, 2015; Romani, Tsouknida, & Olson, 2015; Wang, Xuan, & Jarrold, 2016; for review see Majerus & Cowan, 2016). Of the few relevant studies in children, the findings support the conclusion that there is a serial order memory deficit (Martinez Perez, Majerus, Mahot, & Poncelet, 2012) and refute the suggestion that there is not (Staels & van den Broeck, 2014, 2015).…”

Linking memory and language: Evidence for a serial-order learning impairment in dyslexia

“…2012a; Martinez-Perez, Majerus, & Poncelet, 2013;Hachmann et al, 2014). Indeed, the group difference in filler performance found in the current study even suggest such a difference in immediate-recall performance.…”

Order short-term memory is not impaired in dyslexia and does not affect orthographic learning

“…The apparent instability of a serial order STM deficit in dyslexic individuals is also evident from two recent studies. Hachmann et al (2014) found evidence for such a deficit in dyslexic adults whereas Binamé and Poncelet (2014) reported an item STM deficit in adult poor spellers as well as a serial order STM deficit. Based on the data of these authors we found that the serial order STM deficit disappeared after controlling for item STM performances 2 .…”