Heikki Lyytinen
University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
Posters-Accepted Abstracts: J Psychol Abnorm Child
After summarizing highlights of the results of the Jyvaskyla longitudinal study of Dyslexia (JLD), our long term-predictive study of dyslexia where we have collected developmental data associated with dyslexia from early age to puberty, the conceptual basis and empirical results illustrating our attempts to support children at risk of failing to learn to read will be introduced. The JLD-results reveal that the earliest statistically significant predictions of difficulties associated with reading acquisition can be made already at 3-5 days of age on the basis of brain responses to speech sounds. Very accurate identification of children who will face difficulties in learning to read is possible with very simple means years before the reading age. A most accurate and helpful identification of the need of support can be made via dynamic assessment of the first steps of training needed for learning basic reading skill-learning the connections between spoken and written items. Dynamic assessment can be integrated fully with the efforts to reach the literacy thus avoiding the unnecessary burden for the child to be accessed via less direct and most likely less reliable and valid testing. The training made using the GraphoGame technology we have developed for helping children to learn the reading skill before they can face any failure experiences motivates the learner to repeated practice of the core skill in a game like digital environment. As mentioned it not only helps overcoming reading problems but also provides assessment whose reliability in predicting the time needed for learning to read is high. To reach such goals the implementation of the language-specific content should follow an optimal phonics approach which has been our starting point in all our related, global efficacy studies. These precede any start of using the game outside research context. Successful efficacy studies in Finland provided the base for establishing the GraphoGame service by means of public procurement to hundreds of thousands children with compromised initial learning (from 2007). The next comparable large scale public procurement is expected to be possible soon most likely in Africa where efficacy studies are being conducted in four countries. Investigations are running in four continents in more than 15 countries including attempts to apply the same basic training principles in environment with non-alphabetic orthographies (such as Chinese). Also efficacy studies of two English GraphoGame versions in the UK have been recently published in collaboration with our British colleagues providing evidence on efficient improvement of literacy skills. Today our new efforts are focused on taking the final step needed for full literacy-learning to mediate meaning efficiently from the written world via practices supporting learners�?? readiness to comprehend also demanding written materials.
Email: heikki.j.lyytinen@jyu.fi
