Music Training Increases Phonological Awareness and Reading Skills in Developmental Dyslexia: A Randomized Control Trial

Elena Flaugnacco (1, 2) , Luisa Lopez (3) , Chiara Terribili (2) , Marcella Montico (4) , Stefania Zoia (1) , Daniele Schön (5)

1 Child Neurology and Psychiatry Ward
2 Center for the Child Health - Onlus
3 Rehabilitation Center for Developmental Disorders
4 Epidemiology and Biostatistics Unit
5 INS - Institut de Neurosciences des Systèmes

There is some evidence for a role of music training in boosting phonological awareness, word segmentation, working memory, as well as reading abilities in children with typical development. Poor performance in tasks requiring temporal processing, rhythm perception and sensorimotor synchronization seems to be a crucial factor underlying dyslexia in children. Interestingly, children with dyslexia show deficits in temporal processing, both in language and in music. Within this framework, we test the hypothesis that music training, by improving temporal processing and rhythm abilities, improves phonological awareness and reading skills in children with dyslexia. The study is a prospective, multicenter, open ran-domized controlled trial, consisting of test, rehabilitation and re-test (ID NCT02316873). After rehabilitation, the music group (N = 24) performed better than the control group (N = 22) in tasks assessing rhythmic abilities, phonological awareness and reading skills. This is the first randomized control trial testing the effect of music training in enhancing phonologi-cal and reading abilities in children with dyslexia. The findings show that music training can modify reading and phonological abilities even when these skills are severely impaired. Through the enhancement of temporal processing and rhythmic skills, music might become an important tool in both remediation and early intervention programs.

Keywords: CHILDREN; SPEECH; LANGUAGE; RHYTHM; SOUND; TIME; PRESCHOOLERS; EXPERIENCE; CHILDHOOD; BRAIN PLASTICITY

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]; Neurons and Cognition [q-bio.NC]

Elena Flaugnacco, Luisa Lopez, Chiara Terribili, Marcella Montico, Stefania Zoia, et al.. Music Training Increases Phonological Awareness and Reading Skills in Developmental Dyslexia: A Randomized Control Trial. PLoS ONE, 2015, 10 (e0138715). ⟨hal-01236724⟩