Abstract
The present study investigated the difficulties encountered by children with non-verbal learning disability (NLD) and reading disability (RD) when processing spatial information derived from descriptions, based on the assumption that both groups should find it more difficult than matched controls, but for different reasons, i.e., due to a memory encoding difficulty in cases of RD and to spatial information comprehension problems in cases of NLD. Spatial descriptions from both survey and route perspectives were presented to 9–12-year-old children divided into three groups: NLD (N = 12); RD (N = 12), and typically developing controls (TD; N = 15); then participants completed a sentence verification task and a memory for locations task. The sentence verification task was presented in two conditions: in one the children could refer to the text while answering the questions (i.e., text present condition), and in the other the text was withdrawn (i.e., text absent condition). Results showed that the RD group benefited from the text present condition, but was impaired to the same extent as the NLD group in the text absent condition, suggesting that the NLD children’s difficulty is due mainly to their poor comprehension of spatial descriptions, while the RD children’s difficulty is due more to a memory encoding problem. These results are discussed in terms of their implications in the neuropsychological profiles of children with NLD or RD, and the processes involved in spatial descriptions.
Highlights
In everyday life people continuously learn spatial relations, which can be acquired from various sources, including visual inputs and verbal information
The present study investigated the difficulties encountered by children with non-verbal learning disability (NLD) and reading disability (RD) when processing spatial information derived from descriptions, based on the assumption that both groups should find it more difficult than matched controls, but for different reasons, i.e., due to a memory encoding difficulty in cases of reading disabilities (RD) and to spatial information comprehension problems in cases of non-verbal learning disabilities (NLD)
The NLD group performed worse than the RD group in terms of FSIQ, F(1,22) = 5.45 p = 0.029 η2 = 0.19, and perceptual organization/perceptual reasoning index (POI/PRI), F(1,22) = 35.80 p = 0.0001 η2 = 0.62, Table 1 | Verbal and non-verbal abilities of children with non-verbal learning disabilities (NLD), and reading disabilities (RD)
Summary
In everyday life people continuously learn spatial relations, which can be acquired from various sources, including visual inputs (i.e., maps, navigation, etc.) and verbal information (i.e., spatial descriptions). When people learn spatial directions or landmarks from spoken or written language, they build a mental model, i.e., an internal representation that resembles the structure of the corresponding outside world (Johnson-Laird, 1983), preserving such spatial features as the relationship between landmarks (Perrig and Kintsch, 1985; Taylor and Tversky, 1992) The development of this mental model is sustained by comprehension (van Dijk and Kintsch, 1983), by underlying cognitive processes such as working memory (WM; see Gyselinck and Meneghetti, 2011 for a review) and updating (Avraamides et al, 2013), and by longterm memory for its maintenance (Shelton and McNamara, 2004). Concentrating on children with these different profiles could help us to better distinguish between the contributions of verbal and spatial aspects in forming and maintaining an environment representation
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