Abstract
Verbal short-term memory (STM) impairment is one of the most consistent associated deficits observed in developmental reading disorders such as dyslexia. Few studies have addressed the nature of this STM impairment, especially as regards the ability to temporarily store serial order information. This question is important as studies in typically developing children have shown that serial order STM abilities are predictors of oral and written language development. Associated serial order STM deficits in dyslexia may therefore further increase the learning difficulties in these populations. In this mini review, we show that specific serial order STM impairment is frequently reported in both dyslexic children and adults with a history of dyslexia. Serial order STM impairment appears to occur for the retention of both verbal and visuo-spatial sequence information. Serial order STM impairment is, however, not a characteristic of every individual dyslexic subject and is not specific to dyslexia. Future studies need to determine whether serial order STM impairment is a risk factor which, in association with phonological processing deficits, can lead to dyslexia or whether serial order STM impairment reflects associated deficits causally unrelated to dyslexia.
Highlights
Dyslexia is characterized by important and persisting difficulties in acquiring accurate and efficient reading abilities despite normal-range intellectual efficiency (Snowling, 2000)
Wang et al (2016) found no evidence for either verbal item or serial order short-term memory (STM) impairment in undergraduate university students with a self-reported diagnosis of dyslexia. They used a process dissociation procedure to derive item and serial order STM estimates from performance in a word list immediate serial recall task; the task demands of this procedure may have contributed to these results, given that serial order recall is estimated in a rather indirect manner, by asking participants to recall all items except the item occurring in a specified serial position (Table 1)
All studies reviewed here, except for one, show verbal STM impairment in dyslexia, and these deficits persist until adulthood
Summary
Dyslexia is characterized by important and persisting difficulties in acquiring accurate and efficient reading abilities despite normal-range intellectual efficiency (Snowling, 2000). Two recent studies showed that serial order STM abilities assessed in children at third year of kindergarten predict their reading decoding abilities 1 and 2 years later (Martinez Perez et al, 2012b; Binamé and Poncelet, 2016). It follows that the distinction between item and serial order STM abilities may be useful for understanding the nature of verbal STM impairment in dyslexia. On the other hand, there are additional, specific STM deficits in dyslexia, serial order STM should be impaired
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