Abstract
Developmental dyslexia (DD) has previously been associated with a number of cognitive deficits. Little attention has been directed to cognitive functions that remain intact in the disorder, though the investigation and identification of such strengths might be useful for developing new, and improving current, therapeutical interventions. In this study, an old/new recognition memory paradigm was used to examine previously untested aspects of declarative memory in children with DD and typically developing control children. The DD group was not only not impaired at the task, but actually showed superior recognition memory, as compared to the control children. These findings complement previous reports of enhanced cognition in other domains (e.g., visuo-spatial processing) in DD. Possible underlying mechanisms for the observed DD advantage in declarative memory, and the possibility of compensation by this system for reading deficits in dyslexia, are discussed.
Highlights
Developmental dyslexia (DD) is characterized by unexpected difficulties with reading, in the context of typical educational opportunities and intact intellectual and sensory abilities [1]
Potential group differences (DD vs. typically developing (TD)) in the incidental encoding task were tested with one-way ANCOVAs, with either categorization accuracy for real vs. made-up, or reaction times of correct responses (RTs), as the dependent variable
The two groups did not differ in their reaction times (DD mean = 958 ms, SD = 150 ms; TD mean = 862 ms, SD = 241 ms, F,1)
Summary
Developmental dyslexia (DD) is characterized by unexpected difficulties with reading, in the context of typical educational opportunities and intact intellectual and sensory abilities [1]. DD has been associated with a number of other deficits [6,7], including of working memory [8,9], executive functions [10], motor function [11], implicit sequence learning [12,13,14], and artificial grammar learning [15] as well as problems with other aspects of language that appear to be primary in nature (i.e. a consequence of impaired reading) [16,17,18]. Much attention has been given to cognitive deficits associated with DD, it is not the case that all cognitive functions are impaired in the disorder. We examine a previously untested aspect of declarative memory in children with DD, namely recognition memory after incidental encoding
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