Edtech nonprofit, Neuralign, has launched a “game-changing” cognitive development programme for people with dyslexia, neurodiversity and reading difficulties.
Through years of “extensive” research and fieldwork, it has acquired what it terms an “intimate” understanding of how to design and deliver revolutionary brain training techniques.
A dyslexic family of experts, educators, and creators, known as ReadLS / LSWorks, led by Ingrid, Erika, and Chris Poupart, in Ontario, Canada, are spearheading the project.
Their collective objective is to help dyslexic and learning-disabled students achieve success in reading, build confidence and reduce anxiety.
Dyslexia affects 20% of the global population and 80-90% of those with learning disabilities.
Neuralign is an “evidence-based, process-oriented, targeted and engaging” gamified computer programme that uses a multi-sensorial approach to build phonemic awareness, graphophonemic knowledge, language structure and accelerated neuroplasticity that resolves most symptoms of
dyslexia.
The computer programme includes three weeks of cognitive therapy and ten weeks of reading practice.
As part of this practice, students are asked to read a text every day, reading the same text five times before moving to the next one.
Research study results
The Center for Applied Cognitive Research and the Department of Psychology at Carleton University have announced ground-breaking results of a study that shows that Neuralign improves Dyslexic students’ reading by an average of 50% in 10 weeks.
In the study by the Ottawa-based university, 116 users ranging in age from 6 to 18 years, with an average age of 11, completed ten weekly tasks in reading fluency, measured by the number of words read per minute.
According to the result, the improvement in fluency was “statistically significant”.
On average, students read about 50% more words in week 10 than in week 1.
Users showed significant improvement in reading fluency and in assessed reading performance with a 95% confidence in their findings.
Students read about 50% more words than in week 1, with the improvements statistically significant for the two older groups analyzed (9- to 12 years, and 12- to 18 years), but not for the youngest group, 6- to 9- years.
In part two of the study, Reading Assessments Score at Baseline, Pre-Test, and Post-Test, the reading performance assessment included multiple choice questions where students were shown a picture and then read words or sentences to choose the best answer.
In comparing students’ performance before and after the programme, the researchers saw “significant improvement.
For 100 students, their pre-programme scores averaged 22.4 before the program and 28.6 after, a significant change.
Improvements occurred for students at all reading levels, although they were smaller for those at the highest reading level, possibly because they were reaching ceiling levels of performance on the assessment.
Other studies show Neuralign improves reading skills by at least two grade levels in 99% of students after 40 hours.
Availability
Previously, this premiere technology, known as ReadLS / LSWorks, was available only through psychologists, occupational therapists, and teachers.
The business has undertaken a full rework/rebranding as Neuralign, to make this intervention broadly accessible, logistically and financially, for the public for the first time.
Neuralign aims to leverage the power of engagement with game-plays, a points system, and graphics to:
- Help improve executive functioning skills;
- Strengthen coding and decoding skills;
- Create connections between auditory and visual pathways required for fluent reading.
Neuralign is delivered online in a growing list of countries and languages, through qualified and exclusive local licensees.
In addition, Neuralign is developing other cognitive training and therapy programs to improve new language acquisition, and to assist in the treatment of cognition-related challenges, including dementia, stroke, cerebral palsy, and autism.
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