Impairments in statistical learning might be a common deficit among individuals with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Using meta-analysis, we examined statistical learning in SLI (14 studies, 15 comparisons) and ASD (13 studies, 20 comparisons) to evaluate this hypothesis. Effect sizes were examined as a function of diagnosis across multiple statistical learning tasks (Serial Reaction Time, Contextual Cueing, Artificial Grammar Learning, Speech Stream, Observational Learning, and Probabilistic Classification). Individuals with SLI showed deficits in statistical learning relative to age-matched controls. In contrast, statistical learning was intact in individuals with ASD relative to controls. Effect sizes did not vary as a function of task modality or participant age. Our findings inform debates about overlapping social-communicative difficulties in children with SLI and ASD by suggesting distinct underlying mechanisms. In line with the procedural deficit hypothesis (Ullman and Pierpont, 2005), impaired statistical learning may account for phonological and syntactic difficulties associated with SLI. In contrast, impaired statistical learning fails to account for the social-pragmatic difficulties associated with ASD.
Statistical Learning in Specific Language Impairment and Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Meta-Analysis
R. Obeid,P. J. Brooks,Kasey L. Powers,K. Gillespie-Lynch,J. Lum
Published 2016 in Frontiers in Psychology
ABSTRACT
PUBLICATION RECORD
- Publication year
2016
- Venue
Frontiers in Psychology
- Publication date
2016-08-23
- Fields of study
Medicine, Linguistics, Psychology
- Identifiers
- External record
- Source metadata
Semantic Scholar, PubMed
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