Sentence comprehension in young adults with developmental dyslexia

This study investigated the effects of syntactic complexity on written sentence comprehension in compensated adults with dyslexia. Because working memory (WM) plays a key role in processing complex sentences, and individuals with dyslexia often demonstrate persistent deficits in WM, we hypothesized...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAnnals of dyslexia Vol. 59; no. 2; pp. 151 - 167
Main Authors Wiseheart, Rebecca, Altmann, Lori J. P., Park, Heeyoung, Lombardino, LInda J.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Boston Springer 01.12.2009
Springer US
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Adolescent
Articulation disorders
Cognitive Processes
Comparative Analysis
Comprehension
Contingent Negative Variation
Developmental Disabilities
Dyslexia
Dyslexia - diagnosis
Dyslexia - physiopathology
Education
High Achievement
Humans
Language and Literature
Language comprehension
Language Tests
Linguistics
Memory
Memory, Short-Term
Neurological disorders
Neurology
Phonetics
Psycholinguistics
Reaction Time
Reading Ability
Reading comprehension
Reading difficulties
Relative clauses
Sentences
Short Term Memory
Social Sciences
Syntactics
Syntax
Word Recognition
Working memory
Young Adult
Young Adults
Passives
Dyslexia
Working memory
Sentence comprehension
Syntactic deficits
Relative clauses
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Summary:This study investigated the effects of syntactic complexity on written sentence comprehension in compensated adults with dyslexia. Because working memory (WM) plays a key role in processing complex sentences, and individuals with dyslexia often demonstrate persistent deficits in WM, we hypothesized that individuals with dyslexia would perform more poorly on tasks designed to assess the comprehension of syntactic structures that are especially taxing on WM (e.g., passives, sentences with relative clauses). Compared to their nondyslexic peers, individuals with dyslexia were significantly less accurate and marginally slower on passive sentences. For sentences containing relative clauses, the dyslexic group was also less accurate but did not differe in response times. Covarying WM and word reading in both analyses eliminated group differences showing that syntactic deficits in adults with dyslexia are constrained by both WM and word-reading ability. These findings support previous research showing that syntactic processing deficits are characteristic of dyslexia, even among high-achieving students.
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ISSN:0736-9387
1934-7243
DOI:10.1007/s11881-009-0028-7