View clinical trials related to Dyslexia.
Filter by:Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a multifactorial disorder that hampers the education of about 10% of individuals across cultures and is associated to both phonological and visual deficits. The latter have been linked to a deficit in the magnocellular-dorsal (M-D) visual stream, that has a critical role in guiding the activity of ventral visual stream areas where letters identity is extracted. Here, we will test the efficacy of transcranial alternate current stimulation (tACS) of the M-D stream combined with reading trainings in adult participants with DD, assessing the neurophysiological underpinnings of these new trainings with EEG and fMRI/DTI.
The goal of this project is to address the urgent need for effective, scalable adult literacy interventions by integrating breakthroughs in two separate fields: 1.) the brain network science of resilience to reading disorders and 2.) high-definition non-invasive brain network stimulation. This study will first establish the efficacy of a novel, noninvasive stimulation protocol on reading behavior and brain metrics; then will determine how stimulation-induced effects interact with baseline reading comprehension ability; and lastly, will identify whether stimulation-induced effects are more clinically-beneficial than canonical behavioral interventions. Results may foundationally change how we treat low adult literacy, and have the potential for wider reaching impacts on non-invasive stimulation protocols for other clinical disorders.
Dyslexia is first described as a phonological deficit. Several studies report a neurovisual deficit in dyslexics. Some dyslexics have a visual deficit without phonological impairment, others have a pure phonological deficit, and still others have both types of deficits. From this observation the idea emerged to propose specific remediation protocols for people with visual impairments and to assess their effects on reading. At the theoretical level, if visual stimulation is able to improve reading performance, it is the demonstration of the existence of visual origin of dyslexia. At the clinical level, such a result not only opens the prospect of a different and more adapted rehabilitation for these types of dyslexia, but also the prospect, if the visual deficits are pre-existing to the learning of reading, to use them for early diagnosis and management.
The proposed is reading intervention study to track neural changes in the brain. Students with dyslexia will participate in a reading study. Pre and post-analysis data will be obtained to see whether there will be positive neural and behavioural change.
Developmental dyslexia (DD) is the most common learning disorder. Multiple cognitive and sensory domains contribute to the etiology of DD and develop before reading acquisition. Atypical brain functional responses and structural features have been found in the reading developing circuitry. Treatments addressing visual-spatial attention and motion perception (Visual Attention Training; VAT) are among the most effective interventions in Italian children with DD. The VAT seems to improve the efficiency of the visual attention system and the magnocellular (M) pathway which is crucial for learning to read. Evidence for impaired M function in subjects with DD in the visual striate and extra-striate cortex have been reported. How these treatments affect the brain functionality is still not clear. Since DD has a neurobiological basis, it is important to deeply investigate atypical functional responses and structural features in reading-related areas, and to understand how treatments operate at the neuronal level. A growing number of studies investigates structural and functional measures in neurodevelopmental disorders by using high-resolution MRI at high field (3T and 7T). Similarly, several studies examine the effects of different types of reading training upon brain activity. Better understanding of the relationship between structural/functional abnormalities and DD could disentangle the causes of reading difficulties and helps in developing effective treatments. The significance of this study is twofold: 1) NEURAL CORRELATES OF TREATMENT: The investigators expect TACHIDINO to specifically affect the underlying neurophysiological functioning which influences reading skills in children with DD; 2) BRAIN SIGNATURES: As integrated multi-domain data (behavioral and brain imaging) are complementary to each other, they could enhance the possibility to find unique treatment/brain functioning combinations to evaluate the effectiveness of intervention and to predict the treatment response.
The main objective of the study is to evaluate the specific effect of the sub-components of the reading training program Rhythmic Reading Training (RRT) on reading speed and accuracy in a sample of Italian students with developmental dyslexia (DD). More precisely, in order to better understand the neuropsychological mechanisms involved in reading improvements following RRT, the specific contribution of the visual component of the training (presence of a visual cue) will be investigated in a study with between-groups design.
The overall goal of this project is to advance a biologically-based approach to treatment of reading disorders after stroke, which will expand the limits of cognitive rehabilitation. Using a novel brain imaging technique, called real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) neurofeedback combined with right hand motor imagery, this project will re-instate brain activity in the left language-dominant hemisphere. Stroke patients will practice modulating their own brain activity using fMRI neurofeedback signal and will select the most effective mental strategies that help them maintain brain activation patterns associated with better reading recovery.
iReadMore will provide an app-based therapy for people with pure or central alexia. This study aims to test the clinical effectiveness of iReadMore for improving reading accuracy and speed in real world users of the therapy.
The current project will carry out a large-scale, randomized controlled trial (RCT) to examine the effectiveness of a home-administered technology-based treatment for reading disability (GraphoLearn) in a diagnostically diverse children with reading disability (ages 6.0-10.00). To accomplish this rapidly and with minimal cost, the experimenters will leverage the Healthy Brain Network [HBN], an ongoing study of mental health and learning disorders in children ages 5.0-21.0 whose family have one or more concerns about behavior and/or learning (target n = 10,000; current enrollment = 3000+). The HBN includes comprehensive psychiatric, cognitive, electroencephalogram [EEG] and multimodal magnetic resonance imaging [MRI] characterizations for all participants, providing the present work rich data to build from. The present work will recruit 450 children (ages 6.0-10.0) with reading difficulty from the HBN. In order to evaluate GraphoLearn effectiveness the experimenters will compare reading (and related language skills) before and after a 12-week GraphoLearn reading intervention relative to an active (math) control. The experimenters also assess the stability of the reading gains by including a 12 week retention period ( with pre and post retention assessment). The experimenters hypothesize that they will observe significant gains in reading (and related language) skills relative to the math control conditions, but that these gains will be variable and predicted by participant and environment level factors (predictive models are explored under Aim 2). This evaluation will involve a 3 to 4 visit between groups longitudinal study with cross over elements to evaluate GraphoLearn in struggling readers ages 6-10 using and pre-post behavioral and EEG assessment.
Poly-unsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) represent a component of lipids that covers a relevant role in human diet and biological functions such as provision of energy, functionality of cell membranes and tissue metabolism. Fatty acids carbon chains can be saturated (with no presence of double bonds) or unsaturated (with one or more double bonds). PUFAs fall into the unsaturated group, and they can be divided into two classes: omega-3 (n-3) and omega-6 (n-6) fatty acids (FAs). PUFAs are relevant components of cellular membranes, phospholipids, and precursors of eicosanoids, which influence neuronal development and functioning, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and arachidonic acid (AA) in fact are involved in cell growth, neural signaling, and gene expression. The main natural dietary source for Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and DHA is fish oil. It has also been shown how the Magnocellular system, which includes the retinal ganglion cells, the lateral geniculate nucleus (for the visual system, while the medial geniculate nucleus would be involved for the auditory system) of the thalamus, the posterior parietal cortex, various areas visual of the cortex and part of the cerebellum, is sensitive to the contribution of fatty acids through nutrition. A deficit related to the Magnocellular system, specialized in the processing of stimuli with high temporal frequencies and low spatial frequencies, in both the visual and auditory modalities, has been proposed as one of the causes of Developmental Dyslexia (DD). According to this hypothesis, an alteration at the magnocellular level would affect reading by hampering temporal processing of the visual signal and would reduce the quality of the phonological representations due to imperfect acoustic analysis of the incoming phonemes. It is therefore possible to hypothesize that supplementation of PUFA in dyslexic children would improve the functions of the M-system and thus create better conditions to the remediation of reading difficulties, especially through remediation programs specifically tapping visual attention and rapid processing of visual stimuli. The remediation program currently used at Scientific Institute (IRCCS) Medea, "Tachidino", based on tachistoscopic, hemisphere-specific stimulation and on training of selective visual-spatial attention, has exactly these characteristics. Hence, the present study aims to test the efficacy of PUFA supplementation before and during treatment with Tachidino.