Fluency is the quintessence of effective reading. To obtain socio-economic success, fluent reading is of primordial importance and reading is considered a crucial marker of an individual’s life course. Approximately 5% of children are affected by developmental dyslexia, exhibiting inaccurate word recognition, spelling, phonological decoding, and most importantly, severely dysfluent reading, which remains as their most characterizing and persistent deficit. Unable to attain society’s literacy demands, individuals with dyslexia are at severe risk for adverse academic, economic, and psychosocial consequences. Recently, it has been posed that the development of automatic letter-speech sound (LSS) integration is critical in the acquisition of fluent reading skills, and in particular that a failure to develop automatic LSS integration results in an impairment of reading fluency. In support, neurocognitive research has suggested that the development of automatized processing of LSS associations is an essential step in the formation of a functional neural network for reading. Furthermore, both neurocognitive and behavioural studies have suggested a less efficient LSS integration in children with dyslexia than in typical readers. Finally, results from intervention studies have suggested that training LSS might be a promising approach to ameliorate dysfluent reading in children with dyslexia. Nonetheless, there is still a considerable gap of knowledge in our understanding of the mechanisms by which learning LSS associations relate to (dys)fluent reading.

"In alphabetic languages, learning to associate speech-sounds with unfamiliar characters is a critical step in becoming a proficient reader. This dissertation aimed at expanding our knowledge of this learning process and its relation to dyslexia, with an emphasis on bridging the gap between fundamental research and educational and clinical practice. With this goal in mind, we developed a paradigm in which dyslexic and typical readers engaged in a short computer game-based training aimed at learning eight basic letter-speech sound correspondences within an artificial orthography. The training was followed by an assessment of learning gains. Our findings indicated that: 1) basic knowledge of new correspondences was learned equally well by dyslexic and typical readers; 2) typical readers outperformed dyslexic readers on tasks requiring (a) to identify the new correspondences under time pressure, and (b) to use them in reading; 3) the learning gains made a meaningful and partly independent contribution to explaining individual differences in (a) reading and spelling skills, (b) treatment response, and (c) future reading proficiency of kindergarten children; and 4) implicit learning techniques are successful in promoting letter-speech sound integration in children with dyslexia, although a combination of explicit instruction and implicit techniques proved to be a more powerful tool than implicit training alone. The implications for the current theoretical framework and for educational and clinical practice were reviewed extensively. Taken together, our findings provide strong empirical support for the view that a letter-speech sound learning deficit is a key factor in developing dyslexia."--Samenvatting auteur.

The Science of Reading: A Handbook brings together state-of-the-art reviews of reading research from leading names in the field, to create a highly authoritative, multidisciplinary overview of contemporary knowledge about reading and related skills. Provides comprehensive coverage of the subject, including theoretical approaches, reading processes, stage models of reading, cross-linguistic studies of reading, reading difficulties, the biology of reading, and reading instruction Divided into seven sections:Word Recognition Processes in Reading; Learning to Read and Spell; Reading Comprehension; Reading in Different Languages; Disorders of Reading and Spelling; Biological Bases of Reading; Teaching Reading Edited by well-respected senior figures in the field

It has become accepted in the neuroscience community that perception and performance are quintessentially multisensory by nature. Using the full palette of modern brain imaging and neuroscience methods, The Neural Bases of Multisensory Processes details current understanding in the neural bases for these phenomena as studied across species, stages of development, and clinical statuses. Organized thematically into nine sub-sections, the book is a collection of contributions by leading scientists in the field. Chapters build generally from basic to applied, allowing readers to ascertain how fundamental science informs the clinical and applied sciences. Topics discussed include: Anatomy, essential for understanding the neural substrates of multisensory processing Neurophysiological bases and how multisensory stimuli can dramatically change the encoding processes for sensory information Combinatorial principles and modeling, focusing on efforts to gain a better mechanistic handle on multisensory operations and their network dynamics Development and plasticity Clinical manifestations and how perception and action are affected by altered sensory experience Attention and spatial representations The last sections of the book focus on naturalistic multisensory processes in three separate contexts: motion signals, multisensory contributions to the perception and generation of communication signals, and how the perception of flavor is generated. The text provides a solid introduction for newcomers and a strong overview of the current state of the field for experts.

This is the first book to examine in-depth the crucial role of the speed of information processing in the brain in determining reading fluency in both normal and dyslexic readers. Part I explains fluency in reading from both traditional and modern perspectives. Fluency has historically been viewed as the outcome of other reading-related factors and has often been seen as a convenient measure of reading skills. This book, however, argues that fluency has a strong impact on other aspects of reading and plays a central role in the entire reading process. Part II deals with the determinants of reading fluency. Chief among these is the speed of information processing in the brain. Using both behavioral and electrophysiological evidence, the book systematically examines the features of processing speed in the various brain systems involved in reading: visual-orthographic, auditory-phonological, and semantic and shows how speed of processing affects fluency in reading. Part III deals with the complex issues of cross-modal integration and specifically with the need for effective synchronization of the brain processes involved in reading. It puts forward the Synchronization Hypothesis and discusses the role of the Asynchrony Phenomenon as a major factor in dyslexia. Finally, it summarizes research on manipulating reading rate by means of the Acceleration method, providing evidence for a possible intervention aimed at reducing Asynchrony. Key features of this outstanding new book include: *Expanded View of Fluency. Reading fluency is seen as both a dependent and an independent Variable. Currently available books focus on reading rate solely as the outcome of other factors whereas this volume stresses that it is both an outcome and a cause. *Information Processing Focus. Fluency itself is determined to a large extent by a more general factor, namely, speed of processing in the brain. The book presents wide-ranging evidence for individual differences in speed of processing across many subpopulations. *Brain Synchronization Focus. The book posits a new theory arguing that effective reading requires synchronization of the different brain systems: visual orthographic, auditory-phonological, and semantic. *Research-Based Interventions. Interventions to enhance fluency and, thereby, reading skills in general are presented in detail. *Author Expertise. Zvia Breznitz is Head of the Department of Learning Disabilities and Director of the Laboratory for Neurocognitive Research at Haifa University in Israel, where she has been researching this topic for over a decade. This book is appropriate for researchers and advanced students in reading, dyslexia, learning disabilities, cognitive psychology, and neuropsychology.