Visual statistical learning in children with and without DLD and its relation to literacy in children with DLD

Visual statistical learning (VSL) has been proposed to underlie literacy development in typically developing (TD) children. A deficit in VSL may thus contribute to the observed problems with written language in children with dyslexia. Interestingly, although many children with developmental language disorder (DLD) exhibit problems with written language similar to those seen in children with dyslexia, few studies investigated the presence of a VSL deficit in DLD, and we know very little about the relation between VSL and literacy in this group of children. After testing 36 primary-school-aged children (ages 7;8–10;4) with DLD and their TD peers on a self-paced VSL task, two reading tasks and a spelling task, we find no evidence for or against a VSL deficit in DLD, nor for associations between VSL and literacy in DLD. We discuss the implications for our understanding of language (and literacy) difficulties in children with DLD.