Year: 2025
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Audio-visual (AV) associations are central to many aspects of behavior, including the initial steps of learning to read. The acquisition of AV pairings has been explored in individuals with varying literacy skills, including children with developmental dyslexia. Most previous studies examined performance in AV associative tasks looking at the pairings between linguistic auditory material and visual stimuli, thus confounding AV learning with phonological and/or verbal abilities. In the present study, we introduce an AV learning paradigm relying on non-linguistic auditory stimuli and novel visual shapes. We fit trial-by-trial performance and compare the response patterns of 52 Italian-speaking children with developmental dyslexia (DD) with those of age-matched (N = 54) and of younger, reading-matched (N = 51) typically-developing children. All groups showed increasing accuracy across trials, but children with DD learned less efficiently than their peers. These findings suggest that difficulties in forming AV associations through repeated exposure may underlie dyslexia, even when linguistic demands are minimized.
Source: npj Science of Learning
Institutions: University of Geneva, University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, Brown University, University of Trento, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université Paris Cité, Laboratoire de Psychologie du Développement et de L’Education de l’enfant
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,690
OpenAlex ID: W4417436758