A Cross-Modal Working Memory Binding Span Deficit in Reading Disability

Successful reading demands the ability to combine visual-phonological information into a single representation and is associated with an efficient short-term memory. Reading disability may consequently involve an impaired working memory binding of visual and phonological information. The present stu...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of learning disabilities 2019-03, Vol.52 (2), p.99-108
Main Authors: Toffalini, Enrico, Marsura, Mara, Garcia, Ricardo Basso, Cornoldi, Cesare
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Associative Learning
Auditory Stimuli
Binding
Children
Children with disabilities
Disability
Dyslexia
Elementary School Students
Learning disabilities
Memorization
Memory
Nonsense words
Nonwords
Phonological Awareness
Phonological memory
Phonology
Reading Difficulties
Reading disabilities
Secondary School Students
Short Term Memory
Special education
Verbal memory
Visual Stimuli
Word Recognition
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Successful reading demands the ability to combine visual-phonological information into a single representation and is associated with an efficient short-term memory. Reading disability may consequently involve an impaired working memory binding of visual and phonological information. The present study proposes two span tasks for assessing visual-phonological working memory binding. The tasks involved memorizing cross-modal associations between nonsense figures and nonwords, and they were administered, with other working memory measures, to children with and without a reading disability. The tasks required recognizing which figure was associated with a given nonword and recalling which nonword was associated with a given figure. Children with a reading disability had a similar significant deficit in both cross-modal binding tasks when compared with the control children, and the difference remained significant even after controlling for other verbal and nonverbal working memory measures. The cross-modal binding tasks described here seem to capture a core aspect of working memory associated with reading and may be a useful procedure for assessing reading disabilities.
ISSN:0022-2194
1538-4780
DOI:10.1177/0022219418786691