Short-term memory problems for phonemes' serial order in adults with dyslexia: Evidence from a different analysis of the Nonword repetition task

Abstract

Many studies show that poor readers make more errors in nonword repetition than better readers. Although this finding is generally linked to the lower quality of poor readers' phonological representations in verbal short-term memory, the nature of this poor performance remains unclear. We addressed this issue by focusing on two types of phoneme-related performance in a nonword repetition task: (a) recall of phonemes irrespective of their serial order (phoneme identity) and (b) recall of correctly reproduced phonemes' serial order (serial order). We tested 91 young adults with and without dyslexia. Generalized linear mixed-effects models demonstrated that controls outperformed individuals with dyslexia in the recall of phonemes' serial order but failed to detect a difference in the recall of phonemes' identity. These findings are discussed not only in terms of the nature of or access to phonological representations but also in terms of another concept that has recently been advanced in the literature: a specialized serial order mechanism in verbal short-term memory. We also consider the possibility that individuals with dyslexia may be less sensitive to phonotactic constraints.