Action Video Games Enhance Attentional Control and Phonological Decoding in Children with Developmental Dyslexia.

Sara Bertoni,Martina Mancarella,Simone Gori,Giovanna Puccio,Andrea Facoetti,Sandro Franceschini

doi:10.3390/brainsci11020171

Sara Bertoni, Martina Mancarella + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11020171

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Journal: Brain sciences	Publication Date: Jan 29, 2021
Citations: 40	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Padua, University of Bergamo, KU Leuven

Abstract

Reading acquisition is extremely difficult for about 5% of children because they are affected by a heritable neurobiological disorder called developmental dyslexia (DD). Intervention studies can be used to investigate the causal role of neurocognitive deficits in DD. Recently, it has been proposed that action video games (AVGs)—enhancing attentional control—could improve perception and working memory as well as reading skills. In a partial crossover intervention study, we investigated the effect of AVG and non-AVG training on attentional control using a conjunction visual search task in children with DD. We also measured the non-alphanumeric rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological decoding and word reading before and after AVG and non-AVG training. After both video game training sessions no effect was found in non-alphanumeric RAN and in word reading performance. However, after only 12 h of AVG training the attentional control was improved (i.e., the set-size slopes were flatter in visual search) and phonological decoding speed was accelerated. Crucially, attentional control and phonological decoding speed were increased only in DD children whose video game score was highly efficient after the AVG training. We demonstrated that only an efficient AVG training induces a plasticity of the fronto-parietal attentional control linked to a selective phonological decoding improvement in children with DD.

Highlights

One of the most important cognitive skills in modern society is reading, which starts its development with formal school education
For about 5% of children learning to read is extremely difficult because they are affected by a heritable neurobiological disorder called developmental dyslexia (DD)
Improvement between pre and post training = 0.09 SD = 0.07, mean LSP improvement between pre and post training = −0.001 SD = 0.09). In this partial crossover intervention study, we investigated the effects of a visuoattentional training based on action video games (AVGs) in children with DD

Summary

Introduction

One of the most important cognitive skills in modern society is reading, which starts its development with formal school education. For about 5% of children learning to read is extremely difficult because they are affected by a heritable neurobiological disorder called developmental dyslexia (DD). The most popular one is the phonological theory, in which the core deficit of DD is identified in an auditory and phonological processing impairment [2,3] Based on this theory, some intervention programs for DD are focused on improving phonological processing [4], but the improvements are often found in reading accuracy of single word and pseudoword and in letter-sound knowledge, rather than in text reading fluency (i.e., the ability to read text and pseudowords rapidly and accurately; [5]). For these reasons the intervention programs based only on phonological domains could be not so effective [6]

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