Remedial interventions for developmental dyslexia: How neuropsychological evidence can inspire and support a rehabilitation training

Abstract

Developmental dyslexia (DD) is associated with deficiencies in temporal processing of auditory stimuli, depending on atypical oscillatory neural activity, that are considered to contribute to phonological and reading impairments. To induce a more accurate entrainment to the spectral properties of auditory stimuli in dyslexic readers, we explored the possibility to synchronize speech prosody during reading with an acoustic stimulus presented at a regular pace. Accordingly, an intervention program for DD, called Rhythmic Reading Training, was devised. Several test-training-retest studies supported the efficacy of this new methodology on reading skills of primary and highschool students with DD under different conditions. Finally, preliminary results of the application of RRT combined with neuromodulation (i.e., tDCS) in undergraduate students with DD are presented.