Action video games solve language impairment in children at risk of dyslexia. This is what emerges from a study conducted by a team of researchers from the Universities of Bergamo, Padua, Pavia, Milan, Varese, Lecco and Paris which highlighted how playing an action video game normalizes the perception of speech sounds in preschool children with language difficulties.
Although playing games is considered essential for a child’s cognitive, sensorimotor and social development, there is still some resistance in thinking that a similar role can also be played by current video games.
Several studies have shown that in children with dyslexia, reading speed can improve following rehabilitation treatment with commercial video games that stimulate attention skills. An improvement in attention is essential for reading letters.
These are the premises of the study Action video games normalize the phonemic awareness in pre-readers at risk for developmental dyslexia, published in the journal ‘NPJ Science of Learning’ of the Nature group, conducted by an international team of researchers coordinated by the Universities of Bergamo and Padua, with the University of Pavia, the Sigmund Freud University of Milan, the ASST of Valle Olona di Saronno (Varese), the IRCCS “E. Medea” of Bosisio Parini (Lecco) and the Université Paris Cité.
“From these premises we hypothesized that action video games could also improve the perception of phonemes – says Sara Bertoni of the Department of Human and Social Sciences of the University of Bergamo and first author of the research -. This prevention study involved 120 children in the last year of nursery school. A subgroup of them had difficulties in the prerequisites of reading and writing, and were therefore at risk for future dyslexia. The study shows that with only 20 sessions of playing a video game action lasting 45 minutes each, the disturbances in the perception of phonemes are specifically eliminated”.
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