Fixing fluency: Neurocognitive assessment of a dysfluent reading intervention

The ability to read is essential to attain society’s literacy demands. Unfortunately, a significant percentage of the population experiences major difficulties in mastering reading and spelling skills. Individuals diagnosed with developmental dyslexia are at severe risk for adverse academic, economic, and psychosocial consequences, thus requiring clinical intervention. To date, there is no effective remediation for the lack of reading fluency, which remains as the most persistent symptom in dyslexia. This thesis aims at identifying factors involved in the failure to develop a functional reading network as well as factors of treatment success in addressing the notorious ‘fluency barrier’ in dyslexia.
The present work combines a theoretical framework of dyslexia based on the multisensory integration deficit with recent advances in our knowledge of the brain networks specialized for reading. This thesis uses a longitudinal design including both behavioral and neurophysiological measures in dyslexics at 3rd grade of school. Between measurements, we provide an intervention aimed at improving reading fluency by training automation of letter-speech sound mappings. The studies presented in this thesis contribute to our understanding of dyslexics’ deficits and their remediation.