Fluency And Dyslexia

The title of the study is, “Efficacy of an Intervention to Improve Fluency in Children with Developmental Dyslexia in a Regular Orthography.” It was written by Patrizio E. Tressoldi, Claudio Vio, and Roberto Lozzino. The article was published in the Journal of Learning Disabilities during the year 2007. It appeared in volume 40 beginning on page 203 and concluding on page 209.

The purpose of the study was to determine whether it is possible to achieve greater fluency results with the method described in the study compared to results obtained by a comparative method based on a different approach. In addition, it was a goal to discover if it is possible to obtain continuous gains in reading fluency after treatment replications.

In the research,
These factors were always assessed using normed passages of the MT Battery. Each participant was tested individually and required to read the passage selected according to his or her grade level as fast and accurate as possible paying attention to the content. Each passage consisted of a text of about 200 words. Maximum reading time allowed was 4 min. Fluency is expressed in syllables per second as is customary in Italy, accuracy as percentages of errors corresponding to words read violating the correspondences between orthography and
Participants in the linguistic method were invited to attend the clinic twice a week for 45 min. The treatment was applied by certified speech therapists. This method consisted of different exercises to improve phonemic blending and synthesis and assisted reading of isolated words and simple texts, with feedback in case of errors, but no systematic exercises to recognize syllables either in isolation or embedded in words. Participants in the two subsyllabic methods were requested to attend the clinic once a week during the first month and once every two weeks in the remaining period. During this time, the therapist (usually a certified psychologist) taught the participants and their parents the exercises to practice at home for at least 10–15 min a day for 5 days a week. The exercises consisted in reading text using computer software programs that allowed the presentation of texts of every length, difficulty level, and content, facilitating the visual identification of each syllable (i.e., inserted in a box or colored differently). An important detail is that the shift of the target syllable from left to right could be obtained either at a self-paced speed, pressing the space bar of the computer keyboard, or automatically after a precise interval chosen by the therapist, taking into account the reading fluency of each participant. The participant was invited to read the text accurately and as fast