Effect of nonlinguistic auditory training on phonological and reading skills

Abstract

Objective: To analyze the effect of nonverbal auditory training on reading and phonological awareness tasks in children with dyslexia and the effect of age in relation to post-training learning considering the ages from 7 to 14.

Methods: In experiment 1, one group with dyslexia (total = 12) was trained and compared with a group of untrained dyslexic subjects (total = 28). In experiment 2, the performance of the trained dyslexic group (total = 18) was compared at three different moments: 2 months before, at the beginning, and at the end of training. Training was carried out for 2 months using a computer program responsible for training discrimination skills.

Results: The group receiving nonverbal auditory training demonstrated significant improvements (mainly for the group from 7 to 10 years old), not only in the nonverbal auditory skills trained (p < 0.001), but also in phonological awareness syllable tasks (synthesis, segmentation, manipulation and syllable transposition) in experiment 1 (p < 0.003), and phonemic tasks (p < 0.001) and text reading (p < 0.001) in experiment 2.

Conclusion: The results suggest a link between verbal and nonverbal skills, in addition to corroborating studies regarding the existence of a critical learning period.