O'Brien, B. 1 , Habib, M. 1 & Onnis, L. 2
1 National Institute of Education, Singapore
2 Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Variation in statistical learning (SL) capacity is of broad interest across fields in terms of both individual differences and development. Evidence shows that differences in SL covary with literacy skills, and some suggest that poor SL may underlie dyslexia. On the other hand, evidence for maturation of SL capacity is found across age groups. In this study, we examine SL performance over time in a repeated measures design for children who are struggling readers. They are assessed with a visual SL task adapted from prior studies at two time points: before and after a 6-month reading intervention. We address two questions: namely, whether SL performance is stable over time for this set of children, and whether different types of reading intervention may affect SL. Using mixed-model regression analysis, we examined performance on the SL task?s training phase (312 exposure trials) and test phase (32 AFC trials) at each time point, for the different intervention groups. Preliminary results for the training phase indicate main effects of trial order and session, and for the test phase, a trend for an intervention group by session interaction. Implications are drawn for individual differences and effects of experience on SL.