Beating Dyslexia Through Music

Musical skills may translate into reading skills — particularly for children with dyslexia. Research published by Martina Huss, Usha Goswami, and colleagues in Cortex indicates that musical games may be useful in treating dyslexia in young children because an inability to distinguish between strong and weak “beats” is closely related to dyslexia.

Huss and Goswami asked 10-year-old children to listen to pairs of simple songs in which certain notes were accented. To make the songs different, the scientists changed the length of the accented notes.

Non-dyslexic children were able to distinguish between identical and non-identical song pairs by perceiving “rise time,” which is the time it took for notes to reach peak intensity. Dyslexic children had more difficulty using rise time to distinguish between tunes.

According to the research team, these results show that the ability to perceive the pattern of beats in music and the ability to read are closely linked. Early interventions based on music may allow children to perceive the sounds of language more efficiently, leading to greater success when they learn to read.

Non-dyslexic children may benefit from music training too: Research published by Sylvian Moreno in the October issue of Psychological Science shows that preschoolers can improve their verbal intelligence after 20 days of music-based cognitive training cartoons.

References and Further Reading:

Huss, M., Verney, J. P., Fosker, T., Mead, N., & Goswami, U. (2011). Music, rhythm, rise time perception and developmental

Dyslexia Untied - Phonological Dyslexia

Phonological Dyslexia
(Also known as Dysphonetic, Auditory or dysphonesia dyslexia) This kind of dyslexia is the most common and the person has difficulty in identifying phenomes i.e the sounds within words, and will have difficulty matching letters to sounds.

When trying to read they will make wild guesses at words and will struggle with nonsense words or fictional words that have been constructed from Proper names, Mnemonics, etc.

Greater difficulty will occur when spelling words and they will try to make sense of the illogical chaos and lack of comprehension they are experiencing. Their attempts to spell will include impossible letter combinations e.g. 'sfr'

Most tests for Dyslexia will include the requirement to read nonsense words e.g. 'sluft' and 'prenck'. This is to force the subject to read and sound out the letter combination as a word, revealing an underlying comprehension with letters, words and their construction. Also, it is thought to prevent the subject from simply guessing words they have heard rather than one's they have read.

This test and exercise is meant to determine whether a subject has a Phonological Dyslexia.