Developmental Science

The present study sets out to explore the cognitive underpinnings of reading acquisition in Arabic. Previous studies have identified phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming as early predictors. However, the graphic complexity of Arabic letters imposes particular constraints on the visual system, which should mobilize visual attention. To test this hypothesis, 101 Arabic-speaking children who just began their formal reading instruction in Arabic were administered tests of syllable and word reading. Their nonverbal reasoning, vocabulary, phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming and letter knowledge were measured. Their visual attention was estimated through tasks of visual attention span. We found that phonological awareness, visual attention span and letter knowledge were associated with reading outcomes. However, regression analyses showed that the relationship between visual attention span and reading disappeared when letter knowledge was taken-into-account. We used structural equation modeling to examine the direct and indirect effects of visual attention span to reading. Results showed that phonological awareness and letter knowledge were significant and independent predictors of reading while visual attention span contributed only indirectly through its influence on letter knowledge. Our findings suggest that beginning readers rely on visual attention to identify and discriminate visually-complex Arabic letters. In turn, more efficient letter identification in children with higher visual attention facilitates reading acquisition. These findings support the cognitive models of word recognition that include visual attention as a component of the reading system. They open new perspectives for cross-language studies, suggesting that visual attention might contribute differently to reading depending on the orthographic system. They also provide a foundation for innovative teaching methodologies in Arabic language education.

Fluent reading is an important milestone in education, but we lack a clear understanding of why children vary so widely in attaining this milestone. Language-related factors such as rapid automatized naming (RAN) and phonological awareness have been identified as important factors that influence reading fluency. Of theoretical interest is also, however, whether aspects of visual processing influence reading fluency. To investigate this issue, we tested primary school children (n = 68) on four tasks: two reading fluency tasks (word reading and passage reading), a RAN task to measure naming speed, and a visual search task using letters and bigrams to measure visual processing. As expected, the RAN score was strongly correlated with reading fluency. In addition, visual processing of bigrams was correlated with reading fluency. Importantly, this association was specific to upright but not inverted bigrams, and to bigrams with normal but not large letter spacing. Thus, reading fluency in children is accompanied by specialized changes in upright bigram processing. We propose that bigram processing during visual search could complement existing measures of language processing to understand individual differences in reading fluency.

BackgroundCognitive, language, and social abilities are complex, heritable and intertwined traits shaping childrens development and later mental health. To better understand cross-trait interrelationships, we model here the structures of shared genomic and shared non-genomic/residual (i.e. broadly environmental) influences, and their correlation (rGE), investigating cognitive, language, and social behavioural/communication measures. MethodsData were obtained for unrelated children (8-13 years) from two population-based cohorts: the UK Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC, N[≤]6,543) and the US Adolescent Brain Cognitive DevelopmentSM (ABCD) Study (N[≤]4,412), and analyses were carried out implementing an extended data-driven genetic-relationship-matrix structural equation modelling (GRM-SEM) approach. ResultsIn ALSPAC, we identified two independent phenotypic domains, each captured by a structurally matching pair consisting of a genomic (A) and a non-genomic/residual (E) factor. The first domain reflected cognitive/language difficulties, with the largest genomic and residual factor loadings ({lambda}A and {lambda}E, respectively) for verbal IQ ({lambda}A=0.73(SE=0.05); {lambda}E=0.57(SE=0.07)). The second domain captured social difficulties, with the largest {lambda}A and {lambda}E for social communication measures ({lambda}A=0.39(SE=0.10); {lambda}E=0.82(SE=0.10)). We identified trait-specific rGE between pairs of A and E factors with different directions of effect (cognition/language rGE=0.89(SE=0.18), social rGE=-0.62(SE=0.17)). rGE patterns were linked to increased measurable A and E contributions for cognition/language difficulties, but decreased contributions for social problems. Analyses in ABCD confirmed the two domains for E and phenotypic structures, although genomic contributions were low. ConclusionsIn childhood, cognitive/language abilities versus social abilities are influenced by distinct genomic and/or environmental factors, potentially interlinked through trait-specific rGE, suggesting differences in developmental processes.

The differential sensitivity hypothesis argues that environmental sensitivity has the bivalent effect of predisposing individuals to both the risk-inducing and development-enhancing influences of early social environments. However, the hypothesis requires that this variation in environmental sensitivity be general across domains. In this study, we focused on neural sensitivity and autonomic arousal to test domain generality. Neural sensitivity can be assessed by correlating measures of perceptual sensitivity, as indexed by event-related potentials (ERP) in electrophysiology. The sensitivity of autonomic arousal can be tested via heart rate changes. Domain generality was tested by comparing associations in perceptual sensitivity across auditory and visual domains, and associations between sensitivity in sensory domains and heart rate We contrasted ERP components in auditory (P3) and visual (P1, N290 and P4) detection-of-difference tasks for N=68 infants longitudinally at 6 and 12 months of age. Domain generality should produce correlated individual differences in sensitivity across the two modalities, with higher levels of autonomic arousal associating with increased perceptual sensitivity. Having controlled for multiple comparisons, at 6 months of age, the difference in amplitude of the P3 component evoked in response to standard and deviant tones correlated with the difference in amplitude of the P1 N290 and P4 face-sensitive components evoked in response to fearful and neutral faces. However, this correlation was not found at 12 months of age. Similarly, autonomic arousal negatively correlated with neural sensitivity at 6 months but not at 12 months. The results suggest neural perceptual sensitivity is domain-general across auditory and visual domains, and is related to autonomic arousal at 6 months but not at 12 months of age. We interpret these findings within a neuroconstructivist framework and with respect to the concept of interactive specialisation. By 12 months of age, more experience of visual processing may have led to top-down endogenous attention mechanisms that process visual information in a way that no longer associates with auditory perceptual sensitivity.

Musical training has long been argued to boost early phonological and reading abilities. Cortical tracking of speech (CTS) has been proposed as a mechanism for this music-to-literacy transfer. In this study, we examined how musical training shapes CTS in young readers and whether it facilitates literacy benefits. In a sample of 57 children aged 5-9, musical training was linked to enhanced reading and phonological awareness (PA). EEG during story listening revealed that higher left-hemispheric and lower right-hemispheric CTS were also associated with higher reading scores. However, children with higher musicality exhibited stronger reading skills at lower levels of left-hemispheric CTS, suggesting more adult-like speech analysis. Critically, PA mediated the relationship between musicality and reading: greater musicality was associated with stronger PA, which in turn predicted higher reading performance, independent of demographic and cognitive factors. These findings indicate that musical training supports literacy by enhancing PA and shaping left-lateralized speech processing.

Developmental dyslexia, a specific learning difficulty in reading, manifests as effortful decoding of words and as such is commonly associated with reduced phonemic awareness. However, its underlying cause remains elusive, with magnocellular visual processing, temporal auditory processing, visual attentional deficits and cerebellar dysfunction all gaining some traction. More recent theories have concerned visual attention span, measuring the parallel attentive capacity of the sensory visual system. However the VA span task as implemented requires reports, both conscious recall and recognition of letters, that activate many cortical areas beyond sensory visual cortex. Change detection, in contrast, does not require the conscious recognition of items, but simply awareness that the stimulus has changed, or not, again testing visual attention in a parallel fashion, but avoiding the complications of higher order cognitive processes. Thus, we investigated change detection in 33 good and poor readers with ages of around 10 yr, using a gap paradigm. Groups of 4 letters or 4 shapes were presented for a fixed time (0.7 s), followed after a 0.25 s gap, by a second similar group, each item surrounded by an annular frame filled with dynamic random noise of variable contrast. Detection performance was manipulated by varying the contrast of these meta-contrast mask frames, yielding a threshold contrast of the frames at which participants could just detect change. In two separate experiments, letters and rectangular shapes were used as target items, in order to test whether previous findings of superior change detection in good compared with poor readers was a result of greater automaticity in letter recognition of the good readers. The results indicate that the good readers were able to detect change at higher levels of masking distraction for both the letter and shape targets, indicating that this difference is not specifically related to to the training of graphemic or lexical information but more likely reflects a difference in alerting or pre-recognition stages of visual processing. Together, the results provide further support of the notion that there is a low level attentional performance difference between dyslexic and normal reading children. Thus, the results further bring transient spatial attention directly into the spotlight as an ability critical for learning to read.

Auditory associative word learning has been shown in infants and proven to be a difficult task in young adults, where learning is only successful under specific conditions. In order to better understand the transition from successful infant auditory associative word learning to the challenging adult learning, we tested 5-6-year-olds and 9-10-year-olds in a sequential associative task to investigate their ability in associating novel pseudowords with environmental sounds. Additionally, we explored short-term episodic recognition memory, language development, sex, and musical training and their effects on behavioral and electrophysiological measures of word learning. EEG data were collected to assess word learning in an initial training phase (consistent vs. inconsistent pairings) and a subsequent testing phase (matching vs. violated pairings) with additional button-press reactions for behavioral learning data. While learning effects were seen in the first half of the training phase in younger children, no early effects of learning were found in older children. Only musically trained 9-10-year-olds indicated word learning in the second half of the training phase. In the testing phase, only non-musically trained 9-10-year-olds revealed trend-level N400-like responses. Short-term memory (auditory-verbal, auditory-nonverbal, and visual-nonverbal) and language development improved with age, but only visual-nonverbal short-term recognition memory was positively correlated with improved auditory associative word learning. Unlike cross-modal visual associative word learning, our results, together with earlier findings in infants and young adults, suggest a difficulty in auditory associative word learning beyond infancy, which is sustained from childhood to young adulthood.

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have persistent language learning difficulties and often perform poorly on pseudoword repetition, a task that probes phonological, memory, and speech-motor processes that support vocabulary acquisition. Research on the neural basis of pseudoword repetition in DLD is limited. We used whole-brain functional MRI (fMRI) to examine pseudoword repetition and repetition-based learning in 46 children with DLD (ages 10-15 years) and 71 age-matched children with typical language development. During scanning, children heard and repeated pseudowords paired with visual referents, allowing us to track learning-related changes in neural activity across repetitions. Repeated pseudoword production yielded comparable behavioural learning across groups, with faster productions by later repetitions. Post-scan, form-referent recognition was comparable across groups, whereas pseudoword repetition accuracy was lower in DLD. Pseudoword repetition engaged a distributed neural network, including inferior frontal cortex bilaterally (greater on the left), premotor and sensorimotor cortex, and posterior temporal and occipital regions. Group differences emerged primarily in regions where activity was task negative (i.e., below baseline or deactivated): lateral occipito-parietal cortex (posterior angular gyrus), medial parieto-occipital cortex (retrosplenial), and right posterior cingulate cortex. Learning-related decreases in activity were similar across groups, but region-of-interest analyses showed reduced leftward lateralisation of activity in inferior frontal gyrus in DLD. These findings suggest weaker disengagement of the default mode network during a linguistically demanding task in DLD. Although repetition-based pseudoword learning recruited similar neural mechanisms in both groups, these mechanisms may operate less efficiently in DLD, alongside reduced hemispheric specialisation in inferior frontal cortex. HighlightsO_LISimilar repetition-related neural attenuation across groups during pseudoword learning. C_LIO_LIReduced default-mode network suppression during pseudoword repetition in DLD. C_LIO_LIReduced left-hemisphere specialisation of inferior frontal cortex in DLD. C_LIO_LIRepetition-based learning in DLD supported by less efficient neural networks. C_LI

Visual attention is an important mechanism through which children learn about their environment, and individual differences could substantially shape later development. Eyetracking provides a sensitive and scalable tool for assessing visual attention that has potential for objective assessment of child development, but to date the majority of studies are small and replication attempts are rare. This study investigates the feasibility of a comprehensive eye-tracking assessment of visual attention and introduces a shared data resource for the scientific community. Data from eight eyetracking tasks were collected from 350 term-born (166 females) 18-month-olds recruited as neonates http://www.developingconnectome.org/). Analyses showed expected condition effects for seven of eight tasks (p-values from <.001 to .04), an important indication of replicability. Consistent with some theoretical models of visual attention, structural equation modelling indicated participants performance could be explained by two factors representing social and non-social attention. Comprehensive eye-tracking batteries can objectively measure individual differences in core components of visual attention in large-scale toddlerhood studies. This is the first large-scale comprehensive study to present high-quality normative eye-tracking data from a large task battery in toddlers and make them freely available to the scientific community.

Specific Learning Disorders (SLD), including dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia, are associated with deficits in executive functions such as auditory working memory (AWM). This study investigated AWM performance and metacognitive monitoring in adolescents diagnosed with SLD using an auditory delayed-match-to-sample task. Thirty-six participants (18 with SLD and 18 neurotypical controls) were assessed on accuracy, reaction time, and confidence ratings. Adolescents with SLD exhibited reduced sensitivity to auditory intensity differences, slower reaction times, and more conservative decision-making strategies. Drift diffusion modeling revealed lower evidence accumulation rates and wider decision boundaries in the SLD group. Moreover, confidence ratings were less influenced by stimulus differences, particularly among participants with dyslexia. These findings highlight impairments in auditory processing, decision-making, and metacognitive self-monitoring in adolescents with SLD. The results underscore the importance of interventions that address not only linguistic skills but also auditory decision-making and metacognitive strategies to support learning outcomes.

In children, the ability to listen to relevant auditory information and suppress distracting information is a foundational skill for learning and educational achievement. Distractibility is supported by multiple cognitive components (voluntary attention orienting, sustained attention, distraction, phasic arousal, as well as impulsivity and motor control) that may mature at different ages. Here we used the Competitive Attention Test (CAT) to measure these components in 71 4- and 5-year-old children. The goal of this study was to characterize the changes in efficiency of attention during the preschool period, and to explore differences in distractibility in preschool children that could be related to the socioeconomic status (SES) background of the childs family. We found that sustained attention improves from age 4 to 5, while voluntary attention orienting is still immature during the preschool period. In addition, independent of age, task-irrelevant sounds induced distraction, phasic arousal, and impulsivity. Children from lower SES backgrounds showed reduced sustained attention abilities and increased impulsivity. However, 3-year-old children and a minority of 4- and 5-year-olds did not manage to perform the task according to the instructions; the CAT thus seems suitable to assess distractibility only in preschoolers with sufficiently developed sustained attention skills to efficiently complete the task. Taken together, the present findings suggest that distractibility is still developing during the preschool period and is likely to vary depending on the SES background of a childs family.

Learning to read leads to widespread changes in brain organization, but it is not yet known when text first becomes a privileged stimulus. To test whether specialized neural responses to text appear prior to reading instruction, 31 monolingual toddlers in Israel (2.1-3.6 years) not yet enrolled in school were presented with displays of real, native text and visually matched non-text symbols. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy, we found different patterns of activity in response to text vs. non-text across multiple cortical regions. Most notably, text elicited more activity in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, a region associated with language processing. These results challenge the view that the reading network emerges in response to gains in reading proficiency and instead suggest that through implicit sensitivity to regularities in their input, toddlers may be able to discover that text is a meaningful stimulus and begin to develop associations between language and text. Research HighlightsO_LIToddlers show different neural responses to real text vs. non-text symbols. C_LIO_LIUnfamiliar symbols evoke a novelty response in multiple cortical regions. C_LIO_LIText elicits more activity in a left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, a region associated with processing language. C_LIO_LIBefore they know how to read, toddlers may recognize text as a frequent, familiar stimulus that is linked to language. C_LI

Recent work suggests that pointing based assessments may underestimate or mischaracterize perceptual and cognitive abilities in minimally verbal autism (mvASD). Extending this line of work, we address the classic global local question by testing whether mvASD children access global visual structure and whether it is consistently expressed in behavior using Kanizsa illusory contours (KIC) and circular colinear contours (CC). Typically developing (TD) and mvASD children viewed KIC and CC stimuli on a touchscreen while spontaneous eye gaze and pointing were recorded. Participants also completed a goal directed drag and drop matching task that required selecting the solid shape corresponding to the global KIC configuration. In spontaneous responses, mvASD children were more drawn to local elements (e.g., individual inducers, the CC frame, single Gabors) and showed less centralized responding than TD peers. Notably, CC pointing was often anchored to one half of the contour regardless of contour screen location, suggesting object centered global selection. Also, in the drag and drop task, approx. 90% of mvASD participants performed above chance in at least one condition and half performed at ceiling, demonstrating accurate global matching. These findings suggest that global structure is available in mvASD but may be underweighted in spontaneous response selection under ambiguity, consistent with the Affordance Competition Hypothesis and ambiguity resolution accounts. Lay SummaryAutism research often asks whether autistic people can see the wood for the trees--integrate parts into a coherent whole. This is difficult to test in minimally verbal autism because many standard tasks rely on a single pointing response that may not reflect what a child actually perceives. In our study, children viewed visual illusions in which a clear shape seems to appear even though it is not actually drawn, for example, a triangle you see because several Pac Man shapes are arranged in just the right way, while we measured both where they looked and where they touched the screen. Minimally verbal autistic children were often more drawn to the smaller parts than typically developing peers, yet when a simple drag and drop game required an explicit choice of the overall shape, most selected the correct global shape. Together, the findings suggest that global structure can be available in mvASD, but its expression in spontaneous behavior may be more context dependent under uncertainty, highlighting the value of using more than one way to measure ability.

PurposeWhich processes induce variations in reading speed in young readers with the same amount of education, but different levels of reading fluency? Here, we tested a prediction of the dual-route model: as fluency increases, these variations may reflect a decreasing reliance on decoding and an increasing reliance on the lexical route. Method1,500 French 6th graders passed a one-minute speeded reading-aloud task evaluating fluency, and a 10-minute computerized lexical decision task evaluating the impact of word length, word frequency and pseudoword type. ResultsAs predicted, the word length effect varied dramatically with reading fluency, with the least fluent group showing a length effect even for frequent words. The frequency effect also varied, but solely in proportion to overall slowness, suggesting that frequency affects the decision stage in all readers, while length impacts poor readers disproportionately. Response times and errors were also affected by pseudoword type (e.g. letter substitutions or transpositions), but these effects did not vary much with fluency. Overall, lexical decision variables were excellent predictors of reading fluency (r=0.62). ConclusionOur results call attention to middle-school reading difficulties and encourage the use of lexical decision as a test of students mental lexicon and the automatization of reading.

SignificanceTo learn mathematics, young children require accurate interpretations of mathematics vocabulary. When school language differs from childrens home language, mathematics performance often decreases. Little is known about cortical activation during mathematics vocabulary processing in different languages. This insight will help us to better understand childrens mathematical learning in multilingual societies. Aim and approachWe investigated behavioral and brain responses (fNIRS) of 42 isiZulu and Sesotho (L1) first graders (6.75-7.83 years, 22 girls) who learn mathematics in English (L2) at school when they encounter mathematics vocabulary in L2 compared to L1; and mathematics vocabulary compared to object recognition in L1. ResultsThe results show that higher accuracy in the L1 mathematics vocabulary, as compared to the L2 mathematics vocabulary, comes with the costs of higher cognitive demands in the right superior and middle frontal gyri for first graders. Mathematics vocabulary required longer response time than object recognition and a higher activation in the right superior frontal gyrus. No parietal difference was observed between conditions. ConclusionsFirst graders with no automatization of mathematics vocabulary processing, still demand frontal cognitive resources. This study is a good example of how educational neuroimaging compliments our interpretation of behavioral outcomes and environmental factors such as multilingualism.

Effective speech analysis involves deconstructing the acoustic signal into identifiable linguistic units, which depends on the ability to recognize and anticipate temporal patterns within the speech stream. However, these processes may be less efficient in individuals with dyslexia. This study investigated the effects of temporal context and related temporal predictions in dyslexic adult participants and matched control participants, using an auditory oddball task with non-verbal stimuli. Pure tones were presented in sequences, and participants were requested to discriminate the pitch of target stimuli. The temporal intervals between the sounds varied in regularity across the sequences, thereby creating contexts with different levels of temporal predictability. At the end of each sequence, participants were prompted to evaluate the perceived rhythmicity of the sequence and to assess their own performance in the auditory discrimination task. Dyslexic participants demonstrated overall lower accuracy in discriminating target sounds than controls. They also showed reduced influence of the temporal context of the sequences on response times, while controls responded faster in sequences that were temporally more regular and predictable. Additionally, individuals with dyslexia perceived the rhythmicity of sound sequences less accurately, overestimating the temporal regularity in irregular sequences and underestimating it in regular sequences. They also reported lower overall confidence in their ability to perform the task compared to control participants. Altogether, these findings provide converging evidence for altered temporal prediction abilities in dyslexia, which may impact auditory perception and then impair language processing.

Computational modelling has served as a powerful tool to advance our understanding of language processes by making theoretical ideas rigorously specified and testable (a form of " open science" for theory building). In reading research, one of the most influential computational modelling frameworks is the triangle model of reading that characterises the mappings between orthography, phonology and semantics. Currently, most instantiations of the triangle modelling framework start the processes from orthographic levels which abstract away visual processing. Moreover, without visual processing, most models do not provide an opportunity to investigate visual-related dyslexia. To bridge this crucial gap, the present study extended the existing triangle models by implementing an additional visual input. We trained the model to learn to read from visual input without pre-defined orthographic representations. The model was assessed by reading tasks in both intact and after damage (to mimic acquire alexias). The simulation results demonstrated that the model was able to name word and nonwords as well as make lexical decisions. Damage to the visual, phonological or semantic components of the model resulted in the expected reading impairments associated with pure alexia, phonological dyslexia, and surface dyslexia, respectively. The simulation results demonstrated for the first time that both typical and neurologically-impaired reading including both central and peripheral dyslexia could be addressed in this extended triangle model of reading. The findings are consistent with the primary systems account.

Minimally verbal autistic individuals (mvASD) are often presumed to have severe cognitive and language impairments based on their poor performance on standardized assessments requiring voluntary motor responses, such as pointing. However, emerging evidence suggests that these individuals may possess latent cognitive abilities. Here, we introduce the Cued Looking Paradigm (CLP), a novel eye-tracking method that bypasses motor requirements by capturing automatic gaze responses to language-based stimuli. In our study, 35 minimally verbal autistic adolescents and adults were presented with spoken or written words, followed by a pair of images (target and foil) as their eye movements were recorded. Among mvASD participants with usable eye-tracking data (n = 30), the majority (80%) demonstrated hidden receptive language and reading abilities, as evidenced by eye-gaze measures, including temporal dynamics and spatial displacement, that were comparable to those observed in neurotypical controls. In contrast, the same mvASD individuals averaged only 57% accuracy when asked to read and point to the target picture, revealing a significant gap between reporting via pointing and actual lexical-semantic knowledge. Furthermore, pupil dilation analysis during tasks indicated reduced arousal recruitment in mvASD participants, potentially implicating dysregulation of the locus coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE) system associated with the performance gap between pointing and eye-gaze. These findings challenge assumptions of global intellectual limitation while confirming specific lexical-semantic competence among mvASD individuals. Results highlight the need for, and provide, alternative- assessments that bypass manual motor responses. The CLP shows promise for revealing cognitive and language abilities, with important implications for both research and education. Significance StatementStandard language tests implicitly assume that a person can point or speak. Although minimally verbal individuals can point, this response may not reliably reflect comprehension. Using a simple eye-tracking task that replaces pointing with automatic gaze shifts, we show that most mvASD participants accurately match spoken or written words to pictures--even though they fail the same task when pointing is required. This finding challenges the assumption that absence of speech is typically associated with absence of understanding and reveals bias in common assessments. Tools that bypass manual motor demands by using eye movements, such as the Cued Looking Paradigm, together with changes in assessment and intervention, could transform diagnosis, guide education, and open new research avenues on covert language processing.

Learning to read provides access to life-long educational and vocational opportunities. Some, but not all, deaf children find learning to read challenging, due to reduced access to language, whether spoken or signed. In hearing children, the ability to access and manipulate well-specified, abstract phonological representations of spoken language is important for developing strong reading skills. However, the role that phonology plays in deaf children learning to read is much less clear. Positive associations between speechreading (lip reading) and text reading have been observed in deaf and hearing children, and deaf adults, suggesting that speechreading may play a role in reading development, regardless of hearing status. Further support for this hypothesis would be provided by evidence that similar neural representations of phonology are evoked by visual speech and other language forms (auditory speech and text), and that these neural representations are related to reading proficiency. We used fMRI and Representational Similarity Analysis (RSA) to identify shared neural representations of phonology. A group of deaf adult participants (N=22), with a mixture of sign language and spoken language backgrounds and reading abilities, were presented with single lexical items as visual speech and text. Adult hearing participants (N=25) were presented with the same words, but as visual speech and auditory speech. We hypothesised that common neural representations of phonological structure of English words would be found in each group in the superior and middle temporal cortex (STC/MTC) and that these shared representations would be more similar across different language forms in better readers. Our data supported these predictions providing neurobiological evidence of the contribution of visual speech to abstract phonological representations, that relate to reading proficiency, in both deaf and hearing adults.

BackgroundRecent theories of autism propose that a core deficit in autism would be a less context-sensitive weighting of prediction errors. There is also first support for this hypothesis on an early sensory level. However, an open question is whether this decreased context-sensitivity is caused by faster updating of ones model of the world (i.e. higher weighting of new information), proposed by predictive coding theories, or slower model updating. Here, we differentiated between these two hypotheses by investigating how first impressions shape the mismatch negativity (MMN), reflecting early sensory prediction error processing. MethodsAn autism and matched control group (both n=27) were compared on the multi-timescale MMN paradigm, in which tones were presented that were either standard (frequently occurring) or deviant (rare), and these roles reversed every block. A well-replicated observation is that the initial model (i.e. the standard and deviant sound in the first block) influences MMN amplitudes in later blocks. If autism is characterized by faster model updating, we hypothesized that their MMN amplitudes would be less influenced by the initial context. ResultsWe found that MMN responses in the autism group did not differ between the initial deviant and initial standard sounds as they did in the control group. ConclusionsThese results show that individuals with autism are less influenced by initial contexts, confirming that autism is characterized by faster updating of sensory models, as proposed by predictive coding accounts of autism.