Time-based prospective memory in adults with developmental dyslexia.
Adults with dyslexia miss time-based cues more often, so give external prompts, not mental ones.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Schertz et al. (2016) asked adults with and without dyslexia to remember to do a future task at a set time.
They used two kinds of tests: a computer game and a real-life task.
The study ran in a lab and in the participants’ normal day.
What they found
Adults with dyslexia forgot to act on time far more often than adults without dyslexia.
The gap stayed the same on both the computer task and the everyday task.
How this fits with other research
Cheng et al. (2021) saw a different memory problem in Chinese children with dyslexia: weak visual-attention span and poor phonics.
The two studies do not clash; H et al. looked at remembering to act later, while Chen et al. looked at seeing and sounding out letters.
Ring et al. (2020) used the same adult lab design with autistic adults and also found lower memory spans.
Together the papers show that many neurodivergent adults need extra memory supports, but the support must match the exact memory type that is weak.
Why it matters
If you coach adults with dyslexia, do not rely on them to check a clock on their own. Give an external prompt such as a phone alarm or a visual timer at work. This small change can prevent missed deadlines and boost independence.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Prospective memory (PM) is memory for delayed intentions. Despite its importance to everyday life, the few studies on PM function in adults with dyslexia which exist have relied on self-report measures. To determine whether self-reported PM deficits can be measured objectively, laboratory-based PM tasks were administered to 24 adults with dyslexia and 25 age- and IQ-matched adults without dyslexia. Self-report data indicated that people with dyslexia felt that time-based PM (TBPM; requiring responses at certain times in the future) was most problematic for them and so this form of PM was the focus of investigation. Whilst performing the ongoing task from which they were required to break out every 3 min to make a PM-related response, the participants were allowed to make clock checks whenever they wished. The cognitive demands made on ongoing behaviour were manipulated to determine whether loading executive resources had a mediating role in dyslexia-related deficits in PM, resulting in three tasks with varying working memory load. A semi-naturalistic TBPM task was also administered, in which the participants were asked to remind the experimenter to save a data file 40 min after being given this instruction. Dyslexia-related differences were found across all three computerized tasks, regardless of cognitive load. The adults with dyslexia made fewer correct PM responses and also fewer clock checks. On the semi-naturalistic task, the participants with dyslexia were less likely to remember to remind the experimenter to save the file. This is the first study to document PM deficits in dyslexia using objective measures of performance. Since TBPM impairments were found under more naturalistic conditions as well as on computerized tasks, the results have implications for workplace support for adults with dyslexia.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2016 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2015.11.006