Effect of nonlinguistic auditory training on phonological and reading skills.

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. 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. 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. The results suggest a link between verbal and nonverbal skills, in addition to corroborating studies regarding the existence of a critical learning period. Copyright © 2010 S. Karger AG, Basel.