Currently, no study has demonstrated the efficacy of RAN training with both behavioral and brain-imaging evidence. Besides, the brain basis of RAN and its contribution to reading processes are still not well understood. This study aimed to address these gaps with a RAN-objects intervention, administered to children with dyslexia, and assessed by behavioral and brain measures. Trained children (n = 18) were compared to untrained normal-reading children (n = 13) on RAN, reading, and diffusion MRI measures, before and after the intervention. Results showed significant improvements in the trained children in RAN performance and in word reading accuracy. Importantly, gains in RAN observed in the dyslexic group were correlated with increased fractional anisotropy (FA) in the left anterior segment of the arcuate fasciculus (AF), which is primarily known to be involved in articulation and in speech fluency. Our findings open up new perspectives for remediation of dyslexia, and suggest that RAN essentially recruits a brain pathway involved in oral language production and reading.
Keywords: Children with dyslexia; Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI); Fractional anisotropy (FA); Intervention; Plasticity; Rapid automatized naming (RAN); Reading network; White matter.
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