GraphoLearn Reading Intervention for Dyslexia
Recruiting in Palo Alto (17 mi)
Age: < 18
Sex: Any
Travel: May Be Covered
Time Reimbursement: Varies
Trial Phase: Academic
Recruiting
Sponsor: University of Connecticut
Disqualifiers: Vision, Hearing, Autism, Depression, others
No Placebo Group
Approved in 7 Jurisdictions
Trial Summary
What is the purpose of this trial?The current project will carry out a large-scale, randomized controlled trial (RCT) to examine the effectiveness of a home-administered technology-based treatment for reading disability (GraphoLearn) in a diagnostically diverse children with reading disability (ages 6.0-10.00). To accomplish this rapidly and with minimal cost, the experimenters will leverage the Healthy Brain Network \[HBN\], an ongoing study of mental health and learning disorders in children ages 5.0-21.0 whose family have one or more concerns about behavior and/or learning (target n = 10,000; current enrollment = 3000+). The HBN includes comprehensive psychiatric, cognitive, electroencephalogram \[EEG\] and multimodal magnetic resonance imaging \[MRI\] characterizations for all participants, providing the present work rich data to build from. The present work will recruit 450 children (ages 6.0-10.0) with reading difficulty from the HBN.
In order to evaluate GraphoLearn effectiveness the experimenters will compare reading (and related language skills) before and after a 12-week GraphoLearn reading intervention relative to an active (math) control. The experimenters also assess the stability of the reading gains by including a 12 week retention period ( with pre and post retention assessment).
The experimenters hypothesize that they will observe significant gains in reading (and related language) skills relative to the math control conditions, but that these gains will be variable and predicted by participant and environment level factors (predictive models are explored under Aim 2).
This evaluation will involve a 3 to 4 visit between groups longitudinal study with cross over elements to evaluate GraphoLearn in struggling readers ages 6-10 using and pre-post behavioral and EEG assessment.
Will I have to stop taking my current medications?
The trial information does not specify whether you need to stop taking your current medications. It is best to discuss this with the trial coordinators or your doctor.
What data supports the effectiveness of the GraphoLearn reading intervention treatment for dyslexia?
Research shows that GraphoLearn, a computer game designed to help with reading, improved reading skills in children at risk for dyslexia by enhancing their ability to read made-up words and quickly name objects. Another study found that a version of GraphoGame helped young children at risk for dyslexia improve their letter knowledge and word decoding skills, giving them a head start in early literacy.
12345How is the GraphoLearn reading intervention treatment different from other treatments for dyslexia?
GraphoLearn is unique because it is a computer-based game that helps children with dyslexia by training them to match speech sounds with written letters, making it both engaging and educational. Unlike traditional methods, it uses technology to provide intensive, personalized practice, and has been adapted for use in various languages and educational contexts worldwide.
12367Eligibility Criteria
This trial is for children aged 6 to 10 who are part of the Healthy Brain Network, have reading difficulties as shown by specific test scores, and can speak English natively. They must be able to use a keyboard or mouse and not have severe vision or hearing issues, certain psychiatric conditions like psychosis or major depression, nor moderate to severe autism.Inclusion Criteria
I am between 6 and 10 years old.
I am a native English speaker.
You must have a certain level of intelligence, as measured by a specific test, to participate.
+2 more
Exclusion Criteria
You have trouble seeing or hearing, according to specific tests.
You have thoughts about hurting yourself or others.
I have been diagnosed with major depressive disorder.
+4 more
Trial Timeline
Screening
Participants are screened for eligibility to participate in the trial
2-4 weeks
Treatment
Participants receive a 12-week GraphoLearn reading intervention or an active math control
12 weeks
3 to 4 visits (in-person)
Retention
Participants' reading gains are assessed for stability during a retention period
12 weeks
Follow-up
Participants are monitored for safety and effectiveness after treatment
4 weeks
Participant Groups
The study tests how effective GraphoLearn (a tech-based reading treatment) is compared to a math control intervention in improving reading skills over a period of 12 weeks. It includes follow-up assessments after another 12 weeks without treatment to check if improvements last.
2Treatment groups
Experimental Treatment
Active Control
Group I: GraphoLearn reading interventionExperimental Treatment1 Intervention
GraphoLearn is a research-based treatment, delivered as an engaging computer game. Players match auditory targets (e.g., phonemes, rimes) to visual targets (single letters, letter sequences, words). The complexity of the items within each level is ordered such that at each level, the most frequent and regular mappings are introduced first based on measures such as orthographic/phonological neighborhood size and morphological family size. GraphoLearn allows the children to practice and reinforce lessons at their own individual trial pace and provides a record of performance progress that can be used to guide analyses.
Group II: Vektor math controlActive Control1 Intervention
We selected an active control to maximize the specificity of the treatment outcomes; to this end, math games are among the most commonly used. Game sessions support learning numerical mathematical skills and cognition related to mathematical skills. In addition to math, this game contains training tasks for visuospatial working memory, spatial visualization and visuospatial reasoning. The overall theme of the game and feedback style are similar to those in GraphoLearn.
GraphoLearn reading intervention is already approved in European Union, United States, Canada, Australia for the following indications:
🇪🇺 Approved in European Union as GraphoLearn for:
- Reading disability
- Dyslexia
🇺🇸 Approved in United States as GraphoLearn for:
- Reading disability
- Dyslexia
🇨🇦 Approved in Canada as GraphoLearn for:
- Reading disability
- Dyslexia
🇦🇺 Approved in Australia as GraphoLearn for:
- Reading disability
- Dyslexia
Find a Clinic Near You
Research Locations NearbySelect from list below to view details:
Child Mind InstituteNew York, NY
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Who Is Running the Clinical Trial?
University of ConnecticutLead Sponsor
Haskins LaboratoriesCollaborator
Child Mind InstituteCollaborator
Georgia State UniversityCollaborator
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)Collaborator
References
(Swiss) GraphoLearn: an app-based tool to support beginning readers. [2021]We assessed the Swiss-German version of GraphoLearn, a computer game designed to support reading by training grapheme-phoneme correspondences. A group of 34 children at risk for dyslexia trained three times a week during 14 weeks, on top of their standard school instruction. The sample was divided into two groups of 18 and 16 children, who started training at either the middle or the end of first grade. We found beneficial training effects in pseudoword reading in both training groups and for rapid automatized naming skills in the group that trained earlier. Our results suggest that both the efficiency in phonological decoding and rapid access to verbal representations are susceptible to facilitation by GraphoLearn. These findings confirm the utility of the training software as a tool to support school instruction and reading-related abilities in beginning readers. We discuss ideas to improve the content and outcomes of future versions of the training software.
Digital Game-Based Phonics Instruction Promotes Print Knowledge in Pre-Readers at Cognitive Risk for Dyslexia. [2021]Dyslexia is targeted most effectively when (1) interventions are provided preventively, before the onset of reading instruction, and (2) remediation programs combine letter-sound training with phoneme blending. Given the growing potential of technology in educational contexts, there has been a considerable increase of letter-sound trainings embedded in digital serious games. One such intervention is GraphoGame. Yet, current evidence on the preventive impact of GraphoGame is limited by the lack of adaptation of the original learning content to the skills of pre-readers, short training duration, and a restricted focus on explicitly trained skills. Therefore, the current study aims at investigating the impact of a preventive, and pre-reading adapted GraphoGame training (i.e., GraphoGame-Flemish, GG-FL) on explicitly trained skills and non-specifically trained phonological and language abilities. Following a large-scale screening (N = 1225), the current study included 88 pre-reading kindergarteners at cognitive risk for dyslexia who were assigned to three groups training either with GG-FL (n = 31), an active control game (n = 29), or no game (n = 28). Before and after the 12-week intervention, a variety of reading-related skills were assessed. Moreover, receptive letter knowledge and phonological awareness were measured every three weeks during the intervention period. Results revealed significantly larger improvements in the GG-FL group on explicitly trained skills, i.e., letter knowledge and word decoding, without finding transfer-effects to untrained phonological and language abilities. Our findings imply a GG-FL-driven head start on early literacy skills in at-risk children. A follow-up study should uncover the long-term impact and the ability of GG-FL to prevent actual reading failure.
Dyslexia-Early Identification and Prevention: Highlights from the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia. [2020]Over two decades of Finnish research, monitoring children born with risk for dyslexia has been carried out in the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia (JLD). Two hundred children, half at risk, have been assessed from birth to puberty on hundreds of measures. The aims were to identify measures of prediction of later reading difficulty and to instigate appropriate and earliest diagnosis and intervention. We can identify at-risk children from newborn electroencephalographic brain recordings (Guttorm et al., J Neural Transm 110:1059-1074, 2003). Predictors are also apparent from late-talking infants who have familial background of dyslexia (Lyytinen and Lyytinen, Appl Psycolinguistics 25:397-411, 2004). The earliest easy-to-use predictive measure to identify children who need help to avoid difficulties in learning to read is letter knowledge (Lyytinen et al., Merrill-Palmer Q 52:514-546, 2006). In response, a purpose-engineered computer game, GraphoGame™, provides an effective intervention tool (Lyytinen et al., Scand J Psychol 50:668-675, 2009). In doubling as a research instrument, GraphoGame provides bespoke intervention/reading instruction for typical/atypically developing children. Used extensively throughout Finland, GraphoGame is now crossing the developed and developing world to assist children, irrespective of the cause (environmental or genetic) of their failing to learn to read (Ojanen et al., Front Psychol 6(671):1-13, 2015).
Teaching children with dyslexia to spell in a reading-writers' workshop. [2013]To identify effective treatment for both the spelling and word decoding problems in dyslexia, 24 students with dyslexia in grades 4 to 9 were randomly assigned to treatments A (n=12) or B (n=12) in an after-school reading-writers' workshop at the university (thirty 1-h sessions twice a week over 5 months). First, both groups received step 1 treatment of grapheme-phoneme correspondences (gpc) for oral reading. At step 2, treatment A received gpc training for both oral reading and spelling, and treatment B received gpc training for oral reading and phonological awareness. At step 3, treatment A received orthographic spelling strategy and rapid accelerated reading program (RAP) training, and treatment B continued step 2 training. At step 4, treatment A received morphological strategies and RAP training, and treatment B received orthographic spelling strategy training. Each treatment also had the same integrated reading-writing activities, which many school assignments require. Both groups improved significantly in automatic letter writing, spelling real words, compositional fluency, and oral reading (decoding) rate. Treatment A significantly outperformed treatment B in decoding rate after step 3 orthographic training, which in turn uniquely predicted spelling real words. Letter processing rate increased during step 3 RAP training and correlated significantly with two silent reading fluency measures. Adding orthographic strategies with "working memory in mind" to phonics helps students with dyslexia spell and read English words.
Graphophonological processes in dyslexic readers of French: a longitudinal study of the explicitness effect of tasks. [2012]Given the well-acknowledged phonological deficit found in dyslexic children, this study was aimed at investigating graphophonological processes in dyslexic readers of French over a 1-year period. Among the different types of phonological processing can be distinguished those related to phonological awareness based on knowledge of the oral language and graphophonological processes based on correspondences between the oral and the written language. In this study, we evaluated graphophonemic and graphosyllabic processes using, in each case, two different tasks varying in the degree of cognitive constraint associated with the task (CC- vs CC+). Twenty 11 year-old dyslexic students were compared with younger normal-readers of the same reading level (RA, n=26) and to normal-readers of the same age (CA, n=24). Two variables were considered in the analyses: accuracy and response latency. Results show that dyslexic readers do process written items at the graphophonological level. Also, results indicate main effects of task (CC- vs CC+), time (T1 vs T2), and group (DYS vs RA vs CA). In general, dyslexic participants' performances are comparable to those of RA and differ from those of CA.
GraphoGame - a catalyst for multi-level promotion of literacy in diverse contexts. [2020]GraphoGame (GG) is originally a technology-based intervention method for supporting children with reading difficulties. It is now known that children who face problems in reading acquisition have difficulties in learning to differentiate and manipulate speech sounds and consequently, in connecting these sounds to corresponding letters. GG was developed to provide intensive training in matching speech sounds and larger units of speech to their written counterparts. GG has been shown to benefit children with reading difficulties and the game is now available for all Finnish school children for literacy support. Presently millions of children in Africa fail to learn to read despite years of primary school education. As many African languages have transparent writing systems similar in structure to Finnish, it was hypothesized that GG-based training of letter-sound correspondences could also be effective in supporting children's learning in African countries. In this article we will describe how GG has been developed from a Finnish dyslexia prevention game to an intervention method that can be used not only to improve children's reading performance but also to raise teachers' and parents' awareness of the development of reading skill and effective reading instruction methods. We will also provide an overview of the GG activities in Zambia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Namibia, and the potential to promote education for all with a combination of scientific research and mobile learning.
Supporting Acquisition of Spelling Skills in Different Orthographies Using an Empirically Validated Digital Learning Environment. [2021]This paper discusses how the association learning principle works for supporting acquisition of basic spelling and reading skills using digital game-based learning environment with the Finland-based GraphoLearn (GL) technology. This program has been designed and validated to work with early readers of different alphabetic writing systems using repetition and reinforcing connections between spoken and written units. Initially GL was developed and found effective in training children at risk of reading disorders in Finland. Today GL training has been shown to support learning decoding skills among children independent of whether they face difficulties resulting from educational, social, or biological reasons.