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What are cutting edge or experimental treatment options for dyslexia in a six year old?
Hi there! Thanks for your question about treatment options for six-year-old children with dyslexia. The short answer is that cutting-edge treatments for K-2 children (ages 5-9) focus primarily on vocabulary, phonemic awareness, spelling, and reading accuracy. These focuses can be implemented in a variety of ways. The most innovative and effective treatments for dyslexia include "multisensory" immersion, blended learning tools, and app or resource-driven learning programs.
These treatments can be obtained through many different programs, the most reputable and widely accepted will be listed below. Additionally, these programs can be paired with tools such as apps, books designed for young children with dyslexia, and other forms of cutting-edge and experimental treatments. Below you will see my methodology and a deep-dive of my findings.
METHODOLOGY
I began my research by familiarizing myself with the types of treatments available for young, English-speaking children with dyslexia. although the consensus among medical experts is that dyslexia has no cure, there are many programs available to help those with dyslexia have very successful reading skills. As technology develops and our understanding of dyslexia expands, new programs and technologies are becoming available to help those with dyslexia find the treatment that is best suited for their individual needs.
That said, there are not any truly experimental treatments currently being discussed that would also be suitable for young children around the age of six-years-old. However, I was able to find ChromaGen, a corrective lens that is designed to assist with blurry or moving words on a page, which is a common symptom of dyslexia. Overall, many of the newest and most innovative ways to combat dyslexia are based on cutting-edge ways to implement the proven Orton-Gillingham Approach.
Since you mentioned having already found Orton-Gillingham, I first looked into this method in order to determine any new, cutting-edge, or innovative approaches to helping young children with dyslexia. What I learned was that the Orton-Gillingham Approach is a multisensory approach to combating dyslexia. This approach has been tested and refined over many years, and many programs have used Orton-Gillingham's multisensory approach to developing new techniques for teaching children with dyslexia powerful reading comprehension skills. These multisensory-based programs include the Wilson Language Method, the Lindamood-Bell Program, Preventing Academic Failure (PAF), and others which will be listed below.
Additionally, I found programs that focus less on a multisensory approach and instead use self-paced, habit-building learning programs to target the causes of dyslexia. For example, you mentioned having found Fast ForWord and their K-2 game-based learning program. Some other programs have similar activity-based platforms to immerse young students and target the root causes of dyslexia.
SELECTING TREATMENT OPTIONS
According to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers, there are seven key features that a spelling program for dyslexic students should include. Below I have listed and summarized each feature:
The Orton-Gillingham Approach was developed by Samuel Orton, a neuropsychiatrist, and Anna Gillingham, a psychiatrist and teacher. The approach was developed in the 1930s and is highly effective for individuals with dyslexia as it is multisensory and targets the principals of language.
The Orton-Gillingham Approach "is mainly intended for people who have difficulty with reading, writing, and spelling often associated with dyslexia." According to the Orton-Gillingham Academy website, their approach is both personalized and multisensory. Multisensory refers to programs that use "all the learning pathways: seeing, hearing, feeling awareness of motion, brought together by the thinking brain." For example, a beginning student using the Orton-Gillingham approach might see the letter C, say it out loud, and write it down all at the same time.
The curriculum should present language in a way that "[helps] them break words down into meaningful chunks."
Treatment should teach phonetic correlations so that children can "decode the sounds in the words he hears to encode those sounds on paper."
Programs should "group words by similar patterns instead of presenting an unrelated list of words to memorize," so that students can learn to spell based on "patterns and the reasoning behind them."
Effective programs typically offer a curriculum with heavy emphasis on reviewing which "should allow flexible pacing" so that students can optimize comprehension.
Programs based on the Orton-Gillingham Approach will focus on using "as many pathways to a student's brain as possible." Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers emphasizes the importance of retaining information based on the number of pathways information uses to get to the brain, primarily referring to th e se nses.
Finally, treatments and curriculum should do more than simply teaching children to spell. Rather, they should also teach "the reasons behind the spelling . . . [helping] a child figure out both the spelling and meaning of a word."
Finally, when selecting a treatment program, Understood identifies that multisensory instruction is the most common basis for treatments and that new and innovative treatments based on this method are being introduced as technology and understanding of the human brain evolves. They also mention that there are no drugs to treat dyslexia, though there are certain drugs that may help with other common diagnosis associated with dyslexia such as ADHD or anxiety.
The following programs were selected based on the criteria presented in Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers' checklist of features for top-notch learning programs. Each program's extensive features, innovative learning techniques, and satisfaction of the mentioned checklist made them cutting-edge, reliable programs. All programs are geared towards dyslexic children.
PROGRAMS
Please note that all the programs and tools listed below can be used for young children between the ages of 4 and 8. That said, I primarily focused on programs and tools intended for children K-2, which are children ages 5-7. Additionally, each program and tool are intended for English-speaking children.
This program is based on the Orton-Gillingham Approach. It is also a multisensory approach. While the Wilson Reading System is "designed for students in grades 2 through adulthood who have specific trouble with reading and spelling," there are two tiers which address grades K-3. According to the program page, "students in grades K-3 receive a systematic program in critical foundational skills," which emphasize the seven fundamental needs of a successful program, as outlined by Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers. According to ReadingTutor, the program ideally includes students meeting "with a teacher 3-5 times a week for 60-90 minute sessions, one-on-one or in small groups." They explain that the entire program can take 2-3 years, depending on frequency of study. Wilson Language is cutting-edge because of its deep emphasis on phonics and comprehensive strategies.
This program is a multisensory, evaluation-based learning system that provides both spelling and mathematics help for dyslexics. After contacting the program, an evaluation is scheduled and a personalized curriculum is developed. According to their website, "Lindamood-Bell programs focus on the sensory-cognitive processing necessary for reading and comprehension." This program works for children with dyslexia and coding issues, comprehension issues, and hyperlexia or autism. Based on the Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers checklist, the Lindamood-Bell program satisfies all criteria aside from being based on the Orton-Gillingham Approach. They state that "whereas programs like Orton-Gillingham focus on instructional strategies and expectancies related to phonetic processing, Lindamood-Bell programs stimulate the cognitive skills for reading fluency and language comprehension." This program is cutting-edge because of its specialized evaluation process and personalized curriculum.
This is an Orton-Gillingham based program that uses multisensory instruction and comprehensive curriculum that presents language in an ordered, logical manner, beginning "with the simplest units of written language . . . and progresses to the reading of multisyllable words." PAF includes reading, writing, and handwriting tools that focus on multisensory accuracy and fluency. According to their website, their program satisfies all of Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers necessary features for a successful learning program. This program is cutting-edge because of their tiered program that addresses students of all ages.
This program is a cutting-edge learning system because it "balances science and motivation to accelerate learning, close and prevent the achievement gap, and promote fluency, comprehension, and deep reading." As recommended by Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers' checklist, this program focuses on phonetic patterns, fluency, and deep understanding by teaching children about the meaning and etymology of words. While it does satisfy the majority of the checklist, it is not explicitly Orton-Gillingham based. It was based on over 12 years of research and focuses on the meaning and construction of individual syllables and words that build to the construction and comprehension of language.
AT-HOME TREATMENTS & TOOLS
Previously known as the CD-based learning system Earobics, iRead is "the new, digital foundational reading program designed to close the achievement gap early, and place all K-2 children on a predictable path to reading proficiently by Grade 3." iRead is a personalized digital program that has its foundation in cognitive science and gaming theory, meant to "complement what teachers do best and enables them to maximize efficiency." Additionally, the software has three levels, which address all of Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers features for successful learning programs, aside from being Orton-Gillingham based. This program is cutting-edge because it is a fully-digital learning system with origins as a CD-based system.
This program is a "series of 50+ powerful, adaptive exercises that build processing, memory, language and reading skills in sequence over a period of -6 months, 30 minutes a day." The software is based on research "supported by certified educators who coach, mentor and manage individualized protocols for students at home." It is comprised of 10 programs split into two 4-8 month phases. First, brain training, and second, the reading series. The first addresses issues similarly to the Lindamood-Bell program, "[resolving] cognitive skill gaps," while the second half "builds age-appropriate reading and comprehension skills."
These glasses are a patented treatment option for individuals with reading problems or dyslexia. The corrective lenses can be ordered as glasses, contact lenses, or clip-on lenses. These lenses are meant to help with "blurring or doubling words, words moving on the page, headaches, nausea, fatigue, eyestrain and reduced reading speed and comprehension." Their website does advise that ChromaGen is "a symptomatic treatment option employing eyeglasses and contact lenses."
This book provides extensive supplementary information on learning programs and "reframes the use of film, audiobooks, and materials read aloud as ear-reading, in contrast to the eye-reading that is the educational standard." Geared towards parents, this book discusses methods such as the Orton-Gillingham method and the use of auditory materials.
CONCLUSION
In short, most learning programs are based on the Orton-Gillingham Approach, which focuses on multisensory phonetic learning. However, there are other approaches that are multisensory but focus on cognitive pattern-building, such as the Lindamood-Bell Learning Program. Additionally, there are programs that are more media-based, such as Fast ForWord and iRead, which are introducing new technological developments to reading comprehension and dyslexia treatment.
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