The core deficit underlying developmental dyslexia (DD) has been identified in difficulties in dynamic and rapidly changing auditory information processing, which contribute to the development of impaired phonological representations for words. It has been argued that enhancing basic musical rhythm perception skills in children with DD may have a positive effect on reading abilities because music and language share common mechanisms and thus transfer effects from the former to the latter are expected to occur. A computer-assisted training, called Rhythmic Reading Training (RRT), was designed in which reading exercises are combined with rhythm background. Fourteen junior high school students with DD took part to 9 biweekly individual sessions of 30 minutes in which RRT was implemented. Reading improvements after the intervention period were compared with ones of a matched control group of 14 students with DD who received no intervention. Results indicated that RRT had a positive effect on both reading speed and accuracy, and significant effects were found on short pseudo-words reading speed, long pseudo-words reading speed, high frequency long words reading accuracy, and text reading accuracy. No difference in rhythm perception between the intervention and control group were found. Findings suggest that rhythm facilitates the development of reading skill because of the temporal structure it imposes to word decoding.

Developmental dyslexia is a very common learning disorder causing an impairment in reading ability. Although the core deficit underlying dyslexia is still under debate, significant agreement is reached in the literature that dyslexia is related to a specific deficit in the phonological representation of speech sounds. Many studies also reported an association between reading skills and music. These findings suggest that interventions aimed at enhancing basic auditory skills of children with DD may impact reading abilities. However, music education alone failed to produce improvements in reading skills comparable to those resulting from traditional intervention methods for DD. Therefore, a computer-assisted intervention method, called Rhythmic Reading Training (RRT), which combines sublexical reading exercises with rhythm processing, was implemented. The purpose of the present study was to compare the effectiveness of RRT and that of an intervention resulting from the combination of two yet validated treatments for dyslexia, namely, Bakker’s Visual Hemisphere-Specific Stimulation (VHSS) and the Action Video Game Training (AVG). Both interventions, administered for 13 h over 9 days, significantly improved reading speed and accuracy of a group of Italian students with dyslexia aged 8–14. However, each intervention program produced improvements that were more evident in specific reading parameters: RRT was more effective for improvement of pseudoword reading speed, whereas VHSS + AVG was more effective in increasing general reading accuracy. Such different effects were found to be associated with different cognitive mechanisms, namely, phonological awareness for RRT and rapid automatized naming for VHSS + AVG, thus explaining the specific contribution of each training approach. Clinical Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02791841.

Remediation of reading difficulties through music and auditory-based interventions in children with impairments in reading (such as developmental dyslexia) has been suggested in light of the putative neural and cognitive overlaps between the music and language domains. Several studies had explored the effect of music training on reading development, showing mixed results. However, to date, the meta-analyses on this topic did not differentiate the studies on typical children from those on children with reading difficulties. To draw a clear picture of the remedial effects of music-based and auditory-based interventions, the present review of the literature included studies on struggling readers only. Eighteen studies have been categorized according to the type of the main training activity – either specific auditory training or more broad music training – and the combination with reading exercises. The reviewed studies showed that musical and auditory interventions yielded a positive, but not consistent, effect on reading. Nevertheless, significantly larger improvements of phonological abilities, relative to the control conditions, were overall reported. These findings support the hypothesis of a transfer effect of musical and auditory training on phonological and literacy skills in children with reading difficulties.

It is often argued that individuals with developmental dyslexia (DD) are particularly creative. In order to test this claim, in Study 1 the WCR (widening, connecting and reorganizing) Creativity Test was administered to 52 junior high school students, 19 of whom diagnosed with DD. Results showed that students with DD performed significantly better in the connecting task, which consisted in carrying unusual combination of ideas out. This finding was supported by Study 2, involving a small sample of junior high school students with DD, where a negative correlation between connecting abilities and reading skills emerged. This investigation contributes to the understanding of the peculiar cognitive functioning of people with learning disabilities.

The possibility to use non-invasive brain stimulation to modulate reading performance in individuals with developmental dyslexia (DD) has been recently explored by few empirical investigations. The present systematic review includes nine studies which have employed transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) aiming at improving reading abilities in both typical readers and individuals with DD. Anodal tDCS over the left temporo-parietal cortex—a region which is typically involved in phonological and orthographic processing during reading tasks and underactive in individuals with DD—was the most frequently used montage. The majority of studies employing such stimulation protocol showed significant improvement in differential reading subprocesses. More precisely, word decoding was improved in adult readers, whereas non-word and low-frequency word reading in younger individuals. Furthermore, tDCS was found to be specifically effective in poor readers and individuals with DD rather than typical readers, in spite of the specific brain region targeted by the stimulation; Left frontal, left temporo-parietal, and right cerebellar tDCS failed to modulate reading in already proficient readers. Overall, tDCS appears to be a promising remedial tool for reading difficulties, even when applied to younger populations with reading problems. Further empirical evidence is needed to confirm the potential of neuromodulation as a successful intervention method for DD.

The latest guidelines recommend early identification of children with motor impairments using a standardized norm-referenced test. Motor coordination difficulties in developmental age have been studied extensively over recent years, with experimental literature on developmental coordination disorder (DCD) suggesting that motor proficiency assessments depend on the nature of the task at hand. In this article we reviewed 14 assessment tools to measure movement performance in childhood and adolescence, which are often referred to in an international context. This updated review aims to compare motor tests depending on a) the nature of the tasks included in the battery (i.e., questionnaire and clinical examination), b) psychometric properties, and c) cultural adaptation to relevant developmental norms. Finally, implications for diagnosis and clinical practice are discussed. Considering there are several tests used for DCD, it is important to better define their reliability and validity in different cultures in order to better compare the validation studies and select the most appropriate test to use in the assessment procedure.