RESUMEN
The recommended rehabilitation procedures for Developmental Dyslexia (DD) are not well defined, and there is currently a large debate on which therapeutic approaches are shown to be more useful and effective. Among the trainings focused on general dysfunctional cognitive processes associated with a reading disorder, recent studies suggested the efficacy of trainings on Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) compared to others. The present study was aimed at confirming the effectiveness of RAN training (RANt) to improve the reading performances of children with DD (n = 32) compared to children on a waiting list (WL, n = 25) and to children in different treatment groups, one following a text reading training (RT, n = 26) and the other combining RAN and text reading exercises (RANt+RT, n = 20), through an online platform that allows intensive and self-adaptive activities. Results confirmed the efficacy of RANt in improving reading speed and accuracy compared to the WL group (r2 ranging from small (.16) to medium (.48)) and found the absence of differences with the other active control groups. The single-subject level analysis confirmed the results, a high inter-subject variability in treatment response and pre-post differences were found. Further studies could consider such variability in the functional profile of the DD subjects, but RANt was confirmed to be a valid tool for improving decoding skills.
RESUMEN
Telerehabilitation has proved to be a useful tool for neurodevelopmental disorders in allowing timely and intensive intervention and preventing relapses; it is also widely used for specific learning disabilities (SLD), showing significant effects on reading abilities, but variables linked to its effectiveness have not been studied yet. The present study was aimed at testing the effectiveness of telerehabilitation on reading and writing in SLD children, comparing different treatment pathways, and considering the impact of training intensity and executive functions. Seventy-three children were enrolled (telerehabilitation group: 48 children, waiting list group: 25 children). The results showed significant improvements in reading fluency, text dictation, and executive functions in the training group. Children attending a combined training including reading tasks and rapid automatized naming processes improved in word reading fluency and text dictation. The number of training sessions and the change in executive functions significantly correlated with changes in reading accuracy. Here we show a new contribution to telerehabilitation research in SLD: telerehabilitation significantly enhanced learning abilities and executive functions. Training based on the learning task and the underlying processes significantly increased not only reading speed, according to previous studies, but also writing accuracy. The findings' implications in clinical research and practice are discussed.
RESUMEN
Executive Functions (EFs) are high-order cognitive processes relevant to learning and adaptation and frequently impaired in children with specific learning disorders (SLDs). This study aimed to investigate EFs in children with SLD and explore the role of specific EF-related subprocesses, such as stimuli processing and processing speed. Fifty-seven SLD and 114 typically developing (TD) children, matched for gender and age, completed four tasks measuring response inhibition, interference control, shifting, and updating on a web-based teleassessment platform. The results show that SLD children performed lower in all EF tasks than TD children, regardless of stimulus type and condition. Mediation analyses suggested that differences between the SLD and TD groups are mediated by EF-related subprocesses, offering an interpretative model of EF deficits in children with SLD.