Pre-school exercises can prevent dyslexia

Researchers in Finland are looking at ways of preventing difficulties when learning to read and write in children who have a family history of dyslexia. Heikki Lyytinen and colleagues studied 107 children with at least on dyslexic parent and compared them with children of a similar age with no background of dyslexia. They intensively followed the children from birth through to school age. Children who are at risk of developing dyslexia show various signs as they grow up, such as difficulty in naming familiar objects.

The research group found that invervention with a computer game to aid learning significantly reduced the difficulties that these children experienced when learning to read. They best time to start these exercises was pre-school, although even school age children apparently benefit. Apart from psychology, the exercises include elements from phonetics, mathematics and information technology. This has allowed the researchers to make the learning environment more effective than traditional educational games.