Engelhardt-Yuen-2021

Authors: Paul E Engelhardt, Michelle K Y Yuen, Elise A Kenning, Luna Filipovic.

Article: Are Linguistic Prediction Deficits Characteristic of Adults with Dyslexia?.

Publication: Brain Science (MDPI). 11(1), 59 2021 | DOI: 10.3390/brainsci11010059

[Full Text]

Abstract

Individuals with dyslexia show deficits in phonological abilities, rapid automatized naming, short-term/working memory, processing speed, and some aspects of sensory and visual processing. There is currently one report in the literature that individuals with dyslexia also show impairments in linguistic prediction. The current study sought to investigate prediction in language processing in dyslexia. Forty-one adults with dyslexia and 43 typically-developing controls participated. In the experiment, participants made speeded-acceptability judgements in sentences with word final cloze manipulations. The final word was a high-cloze probability word, a low-cloze probability word, or a semantically anomalous word. Reaction time from the onset of the final word to participants’ response was recorded. Results indicated that individuals with dyslexia showed longer reaction times, and crucially, they showed clear differences from controls in low predictability sentences, which is consistent with deficits in linguistic prediction. Conclusions focus on the mechanism supporting prediction in language comprehension and possible reasons why individuals with dyslexia show less prediction.

Tagged as: cloze probability, linguistic prediction, and sentence processing

Citation:

Engelhardt PE, Yuen MKY, Kenning EA, Filipovic L. Are Linguistic Prediction Deficits Characteristic of Adults with Dyslexia? Brain Sci. 2021 Jan 6;11(1):E59. doi: 10.3390/brainsci11010059. PMID: 33418904

Excerpts from Full Text / Notes:

Discussion

To summarize the main findings of this study, we found that individuals with dyslexia showed clear differences from controls in terms of prediction in low-constraint items. This was evident in the non-significant paired comparison between the high- and low-continuations within low-constraint sentences. In contrast, controls showed significant differences between the high- and low-continuations, in both the highly predictable and less predictable items. There was also a significant group difference in which individuals with dyslexia were slower compared to controls. In addition, we also ensured that differences were not due to age or gender. There are two important take home messages from this study.

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