Abstract
Developmental dyslexia is a very common learning disorder causing an impairment in reading ability. Although the core deficit underlying dyslexia is still under debate, significant agreement is reached in the literature that dyslexia is related to a specific deficit in the phonological representation of speech sounds. Many studies also reported an association between reading skills and music. These findings suggest that interventions aimed at enhancing basic auditory skills of children with DD may impact reading abilities. However, music education alone failed to produce improvements in reading skills comparable to those resulting from traditional intervention methods for DD. Therefore, a computer-assisted intervention method, called Rhythmic Reading Training (RRT), which combines sublexical reading exercises with rhythm processing, was implemented. The purpose of the present study was to compare the effectiveness of RRT and that of an intervention resulting from the combination of two yet validated treatments for dyslexia, namely, Bakker’s Visual Hemisphere-Specific Stimulation (VHSS) and the Action Video Game Training (AVG). Both interventions, administered for 13 h over 9 days, significantly improved reading speed and accuracy of a group of Italian students with dyslexia aged 8–14. However, each intervention program produced improvements that were more evident in specific reading parameters: RRT was more effective for improvement of pseudoword reading speed, whereas VHSS + AVG was more effective in increasing general reading accuracy. Such different effects were found to be associated with different cognitive mechanisms, namely, phonological awareness for RRT and rapid automatized naming for VHSS + AVG, thus explaining the specific contribution of each training approach. Clinical Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02791841.
Highlights
Developmental dyslexia (DD) is one of the most common learning disabilities
The purpose of the present study was to compare the effectiveness of the Rhythmic Reading Training (RRT), an intervention method for DD in which reading exercises are integrated with rhythm processing, with that of an intervention resulting from the combination of two already validated treatments for DD (VHSS according to Bakker’s Balance Model and Action Video Game Training (AVG))
Lexical access is crucial to both word and text reading, and this link to Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) improvement, together with a specific emphasis on word retrieval strategies in the Visual Hemisphere-Specific Stimulation (VHSS) + AVG training group, could explain the tendency for this program to improve text and word reading more than pseudo-word reading
Summary
Developmental dyslexia (DD) is one of the most common learning disabilities. It is unanimously considered to be a neurobiological disorder – even though its brain bases are still under debate (Norton et al, 2015) – characterized by both deficiencies in accurately and fluently recognizing words, poor spelling, and deficits in decoding, despite there being no evidence of an association to any specific sensory, neurological, or intellectual deficiencies (Lyon et al, 2003).Among the several etiological hypotheses proposed, significant agreement is reached in the literature that DD is related to a specific deficit in the phonological representation of speech sounds (Goswami et al, 2002; Ramus, 2004; Ramus et al, 2013; Castles and Friedmann, 2014). Many researchers (e.g., Pennington, 2006) are converging on the idea that several causes and factors interact to contribute to the emergence of reading disorders. This lively search for DD brain basis is fostering a new wave of innovative treatments aiming at enhancing reading skills in an indirect way, by training the cognitive and perceptual skills potentially involved in the reading process (e.g., Thomson et al, 2012; Bhide et al, 2013; Flaugnacco et al, 2015; Cancer and Antonietti, 2018; Frey et al, 2019; Pecini et al, 2019). Interventions should be challenging for and appealing to children, this being one of the major requests by those who carry out treatments
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
