Enhancing reading skills in children with Developmental Dyslexia: Evidence from a treatment that integrates the training of executive functions

It has been shown that children with developmental dyslexia might benefit from training of executive functions (EFs), a set of mental processes that enable us to regulate functions and behaviours. In this study, we examined the responsiveness to treatment in 55 children with developmental dyslexia. Results showed significant improvements in the EFs and in reading speed for the Integrated treatment (i.e., EFs training + phonological-based treatment) group only. In addition, the majority of the children exceeded the criterion of clinical change - i.e., larger improvements than expected in one year of spontaneous reading development. The aforementioned findings suggest that the combination of the cognitive training of EFs with a linguistic treatment can be used effectively in rehabilitating dyslexia.