Following treatment the dyslexics expended 1.8 times the energy to do the same sound-processing task as the controls, compared to about 4 times the energy before treatment. According to Richards the dyslexics and controls were not statistically different after treatment. Over this same period the dyslexics also made large strides in their reading ability, especially in sounding out new words.
"The relative gains they made compared to children of the same age were more than what would be expected for the time that passed between tests," added Berninger. They made significant gains in analyzing sounds needed to decode words and in sounding out unknown words. After the workshop all but one of the boys could read grade appropriate passages.
"This research offers a message of hope. We can see improvement in children's reading levels with this intervention even if there are preexisting brain differences that make learning difficult. "Parents of the boys in the study told us that children who didn't read independently before are now picking up books on their own and reading them."
The new results are part of a larger UW effort to understand the basis of dyslexia and develop treatments for the disorder. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development funds the research and the UWi's multidisciplinary Learning Disabilities Center. The center does not offer a summer treatment program to the general public. Treatment studies are only open to children of families participating in the dyslexia family genetics and brain imaging project.
Other members of the UW research team and co-authors of the study are David Corina, associate professor of psychology; Stephen Dager, professor of psychiatry and behavioral science; Robert Abbott, professor of educational psychology; Kenneth Maravilla, professor of radiology; and Ken Marro, a post-doctoral researcher in radiology. In addition, UW doctoral students Sandra Ser
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Contact: Joel Schwarz
joels@u.washington.edu
206-543-2580
University of Washington
23-May-2000