Audiovisual aids may lessen dyslexia
By Bruce Bower
Now hear this: A short training course in matching sound sequences with visual patterns shows promise as a way to boost reading skills in children with dyslexia, a new study finds.
After such training, children with severe reading problems not only scored higher on reading tests but also displayed brain activity associated with improved detection of sound changes, reports a team led by neuroscientist Teija Kujala of the University of Helsinki in Finland.
The encouraging responses of problem readers to the training, which included neither words nor simple speech sounds, indicates that “dyslexia is at least partly based on a general auditory perceptual deficit,” the scientists conclude in the Aug. 28 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.