The Nature of Paired Associate Learning Deficits in Chinese Children with Developmental Dyslexia

Previous studies have found that individuals with dyslexia perform poorly in paired associate learning (PAL) tasks, which were explained by a deficit in cross-modal association or verbal demand in alphabetic language. However, the nature of PAL deficits in non-alphabetic languages remains unclear. In this study, we conducted PAL and priming tasks in visual–visual, visual–verbal, verbal–visual, and verbal–verbal conditions to dissociate the cross-modal and verbal demands in Chinese children with dyslexia. In Experiment 1, children with dyslexia performed worse in verbal-involved PAL (visual–verbal, verbal–visual, and verbal–verbal) than the control children. Experiment 2 revealed that children with dyslexia performed better than the control children in the verbal–visual condition. Our results suggest that children with dyslexia have an intact ability to form cross-modal associations, which also implies that phonological deficits might be the key to PAL deficits in Chinese children with dyslexia.