Syntactic priming in children with reading difficulties: evidence from abstract and lexically mediated effects

Introduction Children with reading disabilities (RD) often exhibit sentence processing difficulties, yet the underlying source of these difficulties remains debated. One account attributes them to delayed development of syntactic representations due to phonological deficits, whereas another proposes that syntactic knowledge is largely preserved but its use is constrained by limitations in domain-general processing resources. The present study used a structural priming paradigm to examine sensitivity to abstract syntactic structure and lexical overlap in children with reading difficulties (RD). Methods Third-grade children with RD (8−9 years old), age-matched typically developing (TD) children, and adults completed a sentence production priming task manipulating structural repetition and verb overlap. Bayesian analyses were additionally conducted to assess evidence for group differences. Results Children with RD demonstrated reliable abstract structural priming and lexical boost effects, comparable to those observed in TD children. Bayesian analyses further supported the absence of reliable group differences between the two child groups. Both child groups showed weaker abstract structural priming than adults, whereas lexical boost effects did not differ reliably across groups. Discussion These findings suggest that children with RD retain sensitivity to abstract syntactic structures and lexical information during implicit syntactic learning. The weaker structural priming observed in children than in adults may reflect developmental differences in the accessibility or use of syntactic representations. Overall, the findings support the view that sentence-level difficulties in RD may arise from constraints on domain-general processing resources rather than from reduced sensitivity to syntactic structure itself.