The present study examined the long-term effects of a computer intervention for the development of phonological awareness in Dutch kindergartners. Native Dutch and immigrant children worked with the software 15 min/week during one school year. Following a pretest - interim test - post-test - retention test design, the effects on rhyming, phonemic segmentation, auditory blending, and grapheme knowledge were assessed. The intervention showed significant immediate effects on rhyming and grapheme knowledge. The time spent on the computer games also correlated with the learning gains for the experimental group. In the first grade, retention effects were demonstrated after 4 months of formal reading education. Read more...

Certain interventions that ameliorate impairments in reading and attention disorders operate on the physiological level and, therefore, lend themselves to technology-based applications. This study investigates the effects of Dance Dance Revolution (DDR)—a consumer-oriented, multimedia game—on the reading disorders of sixth-grade students with ADHD. It was hypothesized that by matching movements to visual and rhythmic auditory cues, DDR may strengthen neural networks involved in reading and attention and thereby improve student outcomes. Sixty-two students, randomly assigned to treatment and control groups, participated in the test-retest study using the Process Assessment of the Learner: Testing Battery for Reading and Writing as a measure of reading impairment. The results suggest that the treatment may have had an effect on participants’ ability to perform on the Receptive Coding subtest. Furthermore, the results suggest a positive relationship between the number of treatment sessions a student completed and gains made on Receptive Coding and Finger Sense Recognition subtests. Read more...