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Statistical learning and dyslexia: a systematic review

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Abstract

The existing literature on developmental dyslexia (hereafter: dyslexia) often focuses on isolating cognitive skills which differ across dyslexic and control participants. Among potential correlates, previous research has studied group differences between dyslexic and control participants in performance on statistical learning tasks. A statistical learning deficit has been proposed to be a potential cause and/or a marker effect for early detection of dyslexia. It is therefore of practical importance to evaluate the evidence for a group difference. From a theoretical perspective, such a group difference would provide information about the causal chain from statistical learning to reading acquisition. We provide a systematic review of the literature on such a group difference. We conclude that there is insufficient high-quality data to draw conclusions about the presence or absence of an effect.

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Notes

  1. For the current data, the results vary slightly across statistical approaches, though the conclusions converge. A fixed-effect rather than a random-effect model provides an effect size estimate of d = −0.10, 95 % CI [−0.30, 0.1], as it gives strong weighting to the study of Kirk and Pothos, which used a large sample size and found better performance of dyslexic than control participants. We also performed equivalent analyses using a Bayesian approach (in R with the package “bayesmeta”; Roever & Friede, 2016). The prior used was a one-sided Cauchy distribution, assuming that an effect would reflect higher accuracy for control than dyslexic groups, centred on zero. The mean of the posterior distribution was d = 0.25, with a 95 % Bayesian credibility interval of [−0.41; 0.94]. Thus, all approaches converge in suggesting that the estimated effect size is smaller than the one shown in Figure 1, and that there is a high degree of uncertainty.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Nic Badcock and Robert Ross for discussions about meta-analyses, and Robert Ross, Anne Castles, and Max Coltheart for helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. We are further grateful to all authors who replied to our queries. This project was supported by a post-doctoral grant to XS by the Fondazione Marica De Vicenzi and Università degli Studi di Padova.

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  1. Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, Università degli Studi di Padova, Via Venezia 15, 35131, Padova, Italy

    Xenia Schmalz, Gianmarco Altoè & Claudio Mulatti

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Schmalz, X., Altoè, G. & Mulatti, C. Statistical learning and dyslexia: a systematic review. Ann. of Dyslexia 67, 147–162 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11881-016-0136-0

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