Rhythm and Music to Rehabilitate Reading Disorders

Aix Marseille Université48 enrolled

Overview

The purpose of this study is to determine whether music training is an effective treatment of reading disorders

Introduction: Children with dyslexia show deficits in temporal processing, both in language and in music. Musical activity increases phonological awareness, word segmentation, working memory, as well as reading abilities in children with typical development, a compelling evidence for a role of music training in fostering brain plasticity. Within this theoretical framework, we investigate the hypothesis that music training, by improving temporal processing and rhythm abilities, improves phonological awareness and reading skills in children with dyslexia. Methods: The study is a prospective, multicenter, open randomized controlled trial, consisting of test, rehabilitation and re-test

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Enrollment

Conditions

Reading Disability

Interventions

Music trainingBEHAVIORAL

This program was based on the Kodaly and Orff pedagogy and adapted to focus on rhythm and temporal processing.

Visual artsBEHAVIORAL

This program emphasized visual-spatial and hand skills as well as creativity.

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 8 YearsMax age: 11 Years

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * Italian native language * Reading performance (accuracy and/or speed) failed on at least two of three school grade standardized Italian tests: text, words, pseudowords (cut-offs: z-score \<-1.8 standard deviations from the mean for speed scores, a score \<5th percentile in the accuracy scores). * Hearing and neurological examination within normal range * Normal or corrected-to-normal visual acuity * General IQ \>85 at Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children III. Exclusion Criteria: * Presence of comorbidity involving Attentional Deficit Disorders with Hyperactivity (ADHD) * Presence of comorbidity involving Specific Language Impairment (SLI) * Presence of comorbidity involving Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) * Severe emotional-relational impairments * Previous formal musical or painting education for more than one year, other on-going treatment. * Presence of other diseases (i.e. diabetes , cystic fibrosis, asthma...) that could influence the performance in cognitive and executive functions.

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Pseudoword reading test

The primary outcome variable was the performance in the pseudoword reading test measured in terms of accuracy (percentile of number of errors).

Time frame: six months

Secondary Outcomes

Reading text

Reading a short standardized text, measured in terms of accuracy (percentile of number of errors) and speed (z score of reading syll/sec or time).

Time frame: six months

Phonological awareness

Phonemic blending task. Children have to blend sounds into words (e.g. hearing \[c\]-\[a\]-\[t\] and produce \[cat\]). The number of correct items is the dependent variable.

Time frame: six months

Word reading

The ability to read aloud single words and pseudowords is measured on a standardized list of 102 Italian words

Time frame: six months

Data from ClinicalTrials.gov

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