title: A Randomized Controlled Trial on The Beneficial Effects of Training Letter-Speech Sound Integration on Reading Fluency in Children with Dyslexia.
abstract: A recent account of dyslexia assumes that a failure to develop automated letter-speech sound integration might be responsible for the observed lack of reading fluency. This study uses a pre-test-training-post-test design to evaluate the effects of a training program based on letter-speech sound associations with a special focus on gains in reading fluency. A sample of 44 children with dyslexia and 23 typical readers, aged 8 to 9, was recruited. Children with dyslexia were randomly allocated to either the training program group (n = 23) or a waiting-list control group (n = 21). The training intensively focused on letter-speech sound mapping and consisted of 34 individual sessions of 45 minutes over a five month period. The children with dyslexia showed substantial reading gains for the main word reading and spelling measures after training, improving at a faster rate than typical readers and waiting-list controls. The results are interpreted within the conceptual framework assuming a multisensory integration deficit as the most proximal cause of dysfluent reading in dyslexia.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  ISRCTN register ISRCTN12783279.
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.|Rudolf Berlin Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Gorka
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fraga González
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.|Maastricht Brain Imaging Center, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Gojko
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Žarić
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.|Rudolf Berlin Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.|IWAL Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jurgen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tijms
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.|Maastricht Brain Imaging Center, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Milene
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bonte
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Leo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Blomert
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.|Amsterdam Brain and Cognition, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Maurits W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: van der Molen
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011932:Reading; D013016:Sound; D013067:Speech Perception