Reading-induced shifts in speech perception in dyslexic and typically reading children

One of the proposed mechanisms underlying reading difficulties observed indevelopmental dyslexia is impaired mapping of visual to auditory speechrepresentations. We investigate these mappings in 20 typically reading and 20 childrenwith dyslexia aged 8–10 years using text-based recalibration. In this paradigm, thepairing of visual text and ambiguous speech sounds shifts (recalibrates) the participant’sperception of the ambiguous speech in subsequent auditory-only post-test trials.Recent research in adults demonstrated this text-induced perceptual shift in typical,but not in dyslexic readers. Our current results instead show significant text-inducedrecalibration in both typically reading children and children with dyslexia. The strengthof this effect was significantly linked to the strength of perceptual adaptation effects inchildren with dyslexia but not typically reading children. Furthermore, additional analysesin a sample of typically reading children of various reading levels revealed a significant linkbetween recalibration and phoneme categorization. Taken together, our study highlightsthe importance of considering dynamic developmental changes in reading, letter-speechsound coupling and speech perception when investigating group differences betweentypical and dyslexic readers.