The procedural deficit hypothesis claims that impaired procedural learning is a causal risk factor for developmental dyslexia and developmental language disorder. We investigated the relationships between measures of basic cognitive processes (declarative learning, procedural learning and attention) and measures of attainment (reading, grammar and…

This article reports on 2 studies that attempted to replicate the findings of a study by Szmalec, Loncke, Page, and Duyck (2011) on Hebb repetition learning in dyslexic individuals, from which these authors concluded that dyslexics suffer from a deficit in long-term learning of serial order information. In 2 experiments, 1 on adolescents (N = 59)…

The present study offers an integrative account proposing that dyslexia and its various associated cognitive impairments reflect an underlying deficit in the long-term learning of serial-order information, here operationalized as Hebb repetition learning. In nondyslexic individuals, improved immediate serial recall is typically observed when one…

Children with reading comprehension difficulties display impaired performance on semantic processing tasks. These impairments are assumed to reflect weaker knowledge about abstract semantic associations between words in poor comprehenders [Nation, K., & Snowling, M. (1999). Developmental differences in sensitivity to semantic relations among good…

The development of reading-related phonological processing abilities represents an important developmental milestone in the process of learning to read. In this cross-sectional study, confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine the structure of phonological processing abilities in 129 younger preschoolers (M = 40.88 months, SD = 4.65) and 304…

This study investigated the phonological processing skills of 29 children with prelingual, profound hearing loss with 4 years of cochlear implant experience. Results were group matched with regard to word-reading ability and mother's educational level with the performance of 29 hearing children. Results revealed that it is possible to obtain a…

Investigated the specificity of reading-disabled children's deficits in working memory capacity. Found that reading-disabled 10-year-olds performed worse than normal-reading children, matched for chronological age and reading age, on all measures of working memory capacity. Their poorer performance seemed to be due to a general lack of capacity…

Two experiments investigate whether advance organizers (1) help subjects with good reasoning skills compensate for poor memory or information overload; and (2) compensate for distractions. Findings suggest that the organizer technique does not help compensate for processing deficits related to information overload or distracting study conditions.…

A study of 30 normal and poor readers tested the hypothesis that reading disabled children's failure to apply effective strategies to rote-memory tasks is related to their lack of reflective knowledge about memory and their disorganized approach to cognitive tasks. Findings supported the view that many children fail to read well because they do…

This paper outlines several "tricks" that aid students in improving their memories. The distinctions between operational and figural thought processes are noted. Operational memory is described as something that allows adults to make generalizations about numbers and the rules by which they may be combined, thus leading to easier memorization.…

Examined relationships among working memory, memory span, and reading skills in children and adults. Found that working memory and short-term memory skills develop through adolescence, but working memory skills show declines in adulthood. Age-related declines in memory appear to be related to the task's processing demands, which may affect the…

The legitimacy of using the criterion of low reading achievement in the study of learning and memory skills with learning disabled children was assessed, based on a comparison of 35 nondisabled students, 15 low readers, and 10 learning disabled high school students. Learning disabilities were defined as encompassing perceptual and/or processing…

Forty children (ages five to nine) with or without reading disabilities, matched for mental age or reading age, completed a phoneme-grapheme learning task. Reading-disabled children took more trials than controls to learn correspondence pairs. Performance on the phonological processing task of short-term memory was the best predictor of overall…