Back on track: remediating developmental dyslexia with a home-based multi-component program
Karine Louna HARRAR-ESKINAZI, Ambre DENIS-NOEL, Bruno DE CARA, Sylvane FAURE, Gilles LELOUP, Hervé CACI, Johannes C ZIEGLER.
Abstract:
Developmental dyslexia (DD) is associated with multiple cognitive deficits. This study examined whether digital training of specific cognitive components is feasible and effective, whether parental involvement increases training intensity, and whether a multi-component intervention yields specific and cumulative benefits for reading fluency, spelling, and reading comprehension. We developed a multi-component digital intervention targeting visual-attentional (VA), auditory-phonological (AP), and cross-modal processes. In a pre-registered multiple single-case (within-subject) intervention study (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04028310), 144 children with DD aged 8 to 13 years participated. The first two training components (VA vs. AP) were counterbalanced across participants. Each training phase lasted 2 months, with home-based practice 5 days per week for 15 min per session under parental supervision. Before and after the digital intervention phases, children received conventional remediation once per week for 2 months, serving as a within-subject baseline. Training effects were component-specific: VA training led to greater improvements in visual-attentional skills than AP training, whereas AP training yielded greater gains in phoneme awareness than VA training. Across the full three-stage program, cumulative improvements were observed in reading fluency, spelling, and reading comprehension that exceeded gains during conventional remediation alone. Starting with VA training resulted in larger reading fluency gains than starting with AP training. These findings provide a proof of concept that a scalable, home-based, multi-component digital intervention can induce specific cognitive improvements and cumulative gains in reading and spelling skills in children with DD, while remaining feasible for large-scale implementation.
- - - -
And a Meta-analysis :
How are grammatical and arithmetic processing related in the brain? An ALE meta-analysis
Nurit VIESEL-NORMEYER, Johannes C. ZIEGLER, Jérôme PRADO
Abstract:
Grammatical and arithmetic skills are consistently associated, but the nature of this relationship remains debated. On the one hand, it may be due to shared linguistic processes. On the other hand, it may also come from domain-general abilities involved in extracting and applying abstract structured rules. To address this question, we investigated the neural basis of the relation between grammatical and arithmetic processing by conducting an activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis of whole-brain fMRI studies of grammatical (n = 50 experiments) and arithmetic (n = 70 experiments) processing in healthy children and adults. Left perisylvian language regions were more consistently recruited for grammatical than arithmetic processing, whereas bilateral parietal regions were more consistently recruited for arithmetic than grammatical processing. The conjunction analysis revealed overlapping activation in four left-lateralized regions: the junction between the Inferior and Middle Frontal Gyrus, the Supplementary Motor Area, the Parietal Lobule, and the Anterior Insula. Together, these findings indicate that grammatical and arithmetic processing recruit both shared and domain-specific neural systems. The overlapping regions largely correspond to areas associated with the multiple-demand network, suggesting that both domains engage domain-general cognitive mechanisms involved in complex rule-based processing. In contrast, classical perisylvian language regions were selectively recruited during grammatical processing, whereas bilateral parietal regions were more consistently associated with arithmetic processing. These findings therefore suggest that the relation between grammar and arithmetic is better explained by the coexistence of shared domain-general mechanisms and domain-specific neural systems than by shared linguistic processes alone.