Hayek Maisam, Dorfberger Shoshi, Karni Avi
E.J. Safra Brain Research Centre for the Study of Learning Disabilities, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
Special Education Department, Sakhnin Colege, Sakhnin, Israel.
Dev Sci. 2016 Jan;19(1):32-40. doi: 10.1111/desc.12285. Epub 2015 Mar 5.
Children with developmental dyslexia (DD) may differ from typical readers in aspects other than reading. The notion of a general deficit in the ability to acquire and retain procedural ('how to') knowledge as long-term procedural memory has been proposed. Here, we compared the ability of elementary school children, with and without reading difficulties (DD, typical readers), to improve their tactile discrimination with practice and tested the children's ability to retain the gains. Forty 10-11-year-olds practiced the tactile discrimination of four braille letters, presented as pairs, while blindfolded. In a trial, participants were asked to report whether the target stimuli were identical or different from each other. The structured training session consisted of six blocks of 16 trials each. Performance was re-tested at 24 hours and two weeks post-training. Both groups improved in speed and in accuracy. In session 1, children with DD started as significantly less accurate and were slower than the typical readers but showed rapid learning and successfully closed the gap. Only two children with DD failed to benefit from training and were not included in subsequent data analyses. At 24 hours post-training both groups showed effective retention of the gains in speed and accuracy. Importantly, children with DD were able to retain the gains in speed and accuracy, over a two-week interval as effectively as typical readers. Thus, children with DD were as effective in the acquisition and retention of tactile discrimination of braille letters as typical readers of the same age. The results do not support the notion of a general procedural learning disability in DD.
患有发育性阅读障碍（DD）的儿童在阅读之外的其他方面可能与普通读者有所不同。有人提出，作为长期程序性记忆，在获取和保留程序性（“如何做”）知识的能力方面存在普遍缺陷这一观点。在此，我们比较了有阅读困难（DD）和无阅读困难（普通读者）的小学生通过练习提高触觉辨别能力的情况，并测试了儿童保留所获进步的能力。40名10至11岁的儿童在蒙眼的情况下练习对以成对形式呈现的四个盲文字母进行触觉辨别。在一次试验中，参与者被要求报告目标刺激彼此是否相同。结构化训练课程由六个模块组成，每个模块有16次试验。在训练后24小时和两周时对表现进行重新测试。两组在速度和准确性方面都有提高。在第1阶段，患有DD的儿童开始时准确性明显较低，比普通读者慢，但显示出快速学习并成功缩小了差距。只有两名患有DD的儿童未能从训练中受益，未被纳入后续数据分析。训练后24小时，两组在速度和准确性方面都有效保留了所获进步。重要的是，患有DD的儿童能够在两周的时间间隔内像普通读者一样有效地保留速度和准确性方面的进步。因此，患有DD的儿童在获取和保留盲文字母触觉辨别能力方面与同年龄的普通读者一样有效。结果不支持DD存在普遍程序性学习障碍这一观点。
