Early intervention helps against dyslexia
Current research shows that interventions as early as at the age of four help children who are at risk of developing difficulties with reading and writing. In conjunction with World Dyslexia Week in early October, professor of education Ulrika Wolff presented new research findings both in the media and at public lectures.
“The foundation of dyslexia is a lack of phonological awareness, which means that the person has problems handling the sounds of the language. This causes difficulties in decoding words, which makes it hard to read and spell correctly”, says Ulrika Wolff, who is a professor in education at the Department of Education and Special Education, and is also the chair of the Swedish Dyslexia Foundation.
In simple terms, reading requires two skills: decoding symbols (i.e. reading words correctly) and understanding the meaning of language. People with dyslexia have difficulties with the decoding part, so it has nothing to do with talent or intellectual ability.
“Current research is in consensus that dyslexia is genetic. But it is difficult to determine to what extent difficulties with reading and writing are due to inheritance or to environment. Under favourable conditions and with the right support, the difficulties can be alleviated”, says Ulrika Wolff.
Lack of knowledge in schools
As early as at the beginning of the 20th century, it was noticed that some individuals had reading and writing difficulties. At that time, the phenomenon was referred to as “word blindness”. Ulrika Wolff explains that there has been practical knowledge about dyslexia for a long time.
“In the past, schools arranged special reading classes, with competent teachers who understood the difficulties and who could help and support the students. But in the 1970s, many of these special classes disappeared, and with them much of the knowledge that had been acquired. Today, everyone probably has some awareness of dyslexia, but it is common that teachers do not know how to support students with dyslexia.”
Educational research into preventive measures concerning dyslexia took off in the 1970s and 1980s. One important breakthrough was when Ingvar Lundberg, who was then professor of psychology at Umeå University and later at the University of Gothenburg, conducted a major study on Bornholm, and developed the methods that are still widely used today in the so-called Bornholm Model. The basic idea is to train children in phonological awareness in a preventive and playful way.
Phonological training benefits all children
The study conducted by Ingvar Lundberg on Bornholm has been replicated many times and in many different countries. The sum of these studies shows that most children benefit from phonological training either just before or at the same time as they begin to learn to read. But it has also been found that a small group with severe difficulties do not benefit from this training – so-called “treatment resisters”.
With this in mind, Ulrika Wolff and fellow researcher Jan-Eric Gustafsson, has tested similar but adapted methods on 364 children as young as four years of age. Previous research has mainly focused on phonological training from the age of six. The 364 children were randomly divided into two groups – one intervention group that received phonological training for six weeks, and one control group that did not receive the training.
“It is important that the training is playful and fun. Children often think it is great fun to use rhymes, and to play with words. It is also important not to single out the children who may need extra support, but to ensure that all children are included”, explains Ulrika Wolff.
The importance of early intervention
The results show that the children who received the training did much better immediately afterwards, and the effects were still present when they were in grades 2 and 3. At the group level, these students performed better in reading and spelling than the control group, and children at risk for developing reading difficulties benefitted the most from the training. The plan is to continue to monitor these children all the way up to gymnasium school, to see if the effects persist.
“It is early intervention that makes the most difference. Teachers also tend to spot children with literacy difficulties at an early stage. Even so, we still see that most of the time for special education is dedicated in secondary schools, and this is often due to behavioural rather than learning difficulties. We need to change this, and focus more on early intervention.”