Results - Dyslexia

Fast ForWord® for Dyslexia

Study summary

Children with dyslexia (reading problems) experienced changes in their brain activation patterns and significant improvements in reading and language skills following Fast ForWord participation.

Brain imaging scans of children with dyslexia (reading problems) who used the Fast ForWord Language program showed normalisation of activity in critical areas of the brain used for reading. Furthermore, this group of students showed significant improvements in reading and oral language skills on a number of assessments.

Methodology and measures

The study included children with dyslexia aged 8 to 12 years, who used the Fast ForWord Language program for eight weeks. Before and after Fast ForWord Language participation, their brains were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at Stanford's Lucas Center for Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy. At both time points, their language and reading skills were measured using the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test - Revised (WRMT-R), the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, Third Edition (CELF-3), and the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP). A control group of children with normal reading abilities also had their brains scanned, and completed the same test battery at both time points, but they did not use the Fast ForWord Language program.

  • MRI - a brain scanning procedure that reveals patterns of brain activity by tracking changes in blood oxygenation while the individual performs cognitive tasks

  • WRMT-R - a measure of reading skills. The following subtests were used:

    • Word Attack - measures decoding skill

    • Word Identification - measures sight-word reading skill

    • Passage Comprehension - measures reading comprehension skill

  • CELF-3 - a comprehensive language test widely used to measure receptive and expressive language skills, in particular the ability to follow directions, to recall and formulate sentences, and to understand relationships between words and categories

  • CTOPP - a measure of phonological processing skills related to early reading proficiency. The Rapid Naming subtest was used, and measures naming fluency, a skill correlated with the development of reading fluency.

Source

Temple, E., Deutsch, G. K., Poldrack, R. A., Miller, S. L., Tallal, P., Merzenich, M. M., Gabrieli, J. D. (2003). Neural deficits in children with dyslexia ameliorated by behavioral remediation: Evidence from functional MRI. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 100, No. 5: pp. 2860-2865.

Also see

Gaab, N., Gabrieli, J.D.E, Deutsch, G.K., Tallal, P., Temple, E. (2007). Neural correlates of rapid auditory processing are disrupted in children with developmental dyslexia and ameliorated with training: An fMRI study. Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience 25, 295–310.

Gabrieli, J.D.E., et al. (2009). Dyslexia: A New Synergy Between Education and Cognitive Neuroscience. Science, 325, 280.

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