Bertoni Sara, Franceschini Sandro, Puccio Giovanna, Mancarella Martina, Gori Simone, Facoetti Andrea
Department of Human and Social Sciences, University of Bergamo, 24129 Bergamo, Italy.
Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, 35122 Padova, Italy.
Brain Sci. 2021 Jan 29;11(2):171. doi: 10.3390/brainsci11020171.
Reading acquisition is extremely difficult for about 5% of children because they are affected by a heritable neurobiological disorder called developmental dyslexia (DD). Intervention studies can be used to investigate the causal role of neurocognitive deficits in DD. Recently, it has been proposed that action video games (AVGs)-enhancing attentional control-could improve perception and working memory as well as reading skills. In a partial crossover intervention study, we investigated the effect of AVG and non-AVG training on attentional control using a conjunction visual search task in children with DD. We also measured the non-alphanumeric rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological decoding and word reading before and after AVG and non-AVG training. After both video game training sessions no effect was found in non-alphanumeric RAN and in word reading performance. However, after only 12 h of AVG training the attentional control was improved (i.e., the set-size slopes were flatter in visual search) and phonological decoding speed was accelerated. Crucially, attentional control and phonological decoding speed were increased only in DD children whose video game score was highly efficient after the AVG training. We demonstrated that only an efficient AVG training induces a plasticity of the fronto-parietal attentional control linked to a selective phonological decoding improvement in children with DD.
约5%的儿童在阅读学习方面极为困难，因为他们受到一种名为发育性阅读障碍（DD）的遗传性神经生物学障碍的影响。干预研究可用于探究神经认知缺陷在DD中的因果作用。最近，有人提出，增强注意力控制的动作电子游戏（AVG）可以改善感知、工作记忆以及阅读技能。在一项部分交叉干预研究中，我们使用联合视觉搜索任务，研究了AVG训练和非AVG训练对DD儿童注意力控制的影响。我们还在AVG训练和非AVG训练前后测量了非字母数字快速自动命名（RAN）、语音解码和单词阅读能力。在两次电子游戏训练课程后，未发现非字母数字RAN和单词阅读表现有变化。然而，仅经过12小时的AVG训练，注意力控制得到改善（即视觉搜索中的组块大小斜率更平缓），语音解码速度加快。至关重要的是，只有在AVG训练后电子游戏得分高效的DD儿童中，注意力控制和语音解码速度才会提高。我们证明，只有高效的AVG训练才能诱导DD儿童额顶叶注意力控制的可塑性，这与选择性语音解码改善有关。
