Impaired procedural learning has been suggested as a possible cause of developmental dyslexia (DD) and specific language impairment (SLI). This study examined the relationship between measures of verbal and non‐verbal implicit and explicit learning and measures of language, literacy and arithmetic attainment in a large sample of 7 to 8‐year‐old children. Measures of verbal explicit learning were correlated with measures of attainment. In contrast, no relationships between measures of implicit learning and attainment were found. Critically, the reliability of the implicit learning tasks was poor. Our results show that measures of procedural learning, as currently used, are typically unreliable and insensitive to individual differences. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnvV-BvNWSo

The procedural deficit hypothesis claims that impaired procedural learning is a causal risk factor for developmental dyslexia and developmental language disorder. We investigated the relationships between measures of basic cognitive processes (declarative learning, procedural learning and attention) and measures of attainment (reading, grammar and arithmetic) in a large sample of 7-and 8-year-old children. A latent variable path model showed that verbal declarative memory skills predicted attainment but were not significantly related to attention. Procedural learning was only weakly related to measures of attainment and attention assessed during the procedural learning task accounted entirely for its relationship with measures of attainment. Our results challenge the procedural deficit hypothesis of reading and language disorders, but suggest that attentional skills (rather than procedural learning ability per se) may be an important predictor of reading, arithmetic and grammatical skills.

It is now widely accepted that phonological language skills are a critical foundation for learning to read (decode). This longitudinal study investigated the predictive relationship between a range of key phonological language skills and early reading development in a sample of 191 children in their first year at school. The study also explored the theory that a failure to establish automatic associations between letters and speech sounds is a proximal causal risk factor for difficulties in learning to read. Our findings show that automatic letter-sound associations are established early, but do not predict variations in reading development. In contrast, phoneme awareness, letter-sound knowledge and alphanumeric RAN were all strong independent predictors of reading development. In addition, both phoneme awareness and RAN displayed a reciprocal relationship with reading, such that the growth of reading predicted improvements in these skills.

Impaired procedural learning has been suggested as a possible cause of developmental dyslexia (DD) and Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). We evaluate this theory by performing a series of meta-analyses on evidence from the six procedural learning tasks that have most commonly been used to test this theory: the serial reaction time, Hebb learning, artificial grammar and statistical learning, weather prediction and contextual cueing tasks. Studies using serial reaction time and Hebb learning tasks yielded small group deficits in comparisons between language impaired and typically developing controls (g = -0.30 and -0.32 respectively).However, a meta-analysis of correlational studies showed that the serial reaction time task was not a reliable correlate of language-related ability in unselected samples (r = 0.03). Larger group deficits were, however, found in studies using artificial grammar and statistical learning tasks (g = -0.48) and the weather prediction task (g = -0.63). Possible reasons for the discrepancy in results from different tasks that all purportedly measure procedural learning are highlighted.We conclude that current data do not provide an adequate test of the theory that a generalized procedural learning deficit is a causal risk factor for developmental dyslexia or developmental language disorder.

Oral language is crucial for social interaction and for learning in the classroom; it also provides the foundation for reading comprehension. It follows that children with language difficulties are at high risk of educational failure. Recently, a number of studies have demonstrated that it is possible to produce small but significant improvements in children’s oral language through targeted language interventions ( d = 0.16) and, furthermore, that studies with high-quality implementation show larger effects ( d = 0.24). There is also evidence that effects of language intervention can generalize to produce improvements in reading comprehension. Although further research examining the long-term effects of language interventions are needed, current findings have important implications for educational policy and practice.