Daniela Traficante

Efficacy of music therapy treatment based on cycles of sessions: A randomised controlled trial

We undertook a randomised controlled trial to assess whether a music therapy (MT) scheme of administration, including three working cycles of one month spaced out by one month of no treatment, is effective to reduce behavioural disturbances in severely demented patients. Sixty persons with severe dementia (30 in the experimental and 30 in the control group) were enrolled. Baseline multidimensional assessment included demographics, Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), Barthel Index and Neuropsychiatry Inventory (NPI) for all patients. All the patients of the experimental and control groups received standard care (educational and entertainment activities). In addition, the experimental group received three cycles of 12 active MT sessions each, three times a week. Each 30-min session included a group of three patients. Every cycle of treatment was followed by one month of wash-out. At the end of this study, MT treatment resulted to be more effective than standard care to reduce behavioural disorders. We observed a significant reduction over time in the NPI global scores in both groups (F 7,357 = 9.06, p < 0.001) and a significant difference between groups (F 1,51 = 4.84, p < 0.05) due to a higher reduction of behavioural disturbances in the experimental group at the end of the treatment (Cohens d = 0.63). The analysis of single NPI items shows that delusions, agitation and apathy significantly improved in the experimental, but not in the control group. This study suggests the effectiveness of MT approach with working cycles in reducing behavioural disorders of severely demented patients.

Word frequency modulates morpheme-based reading in poor and skilled Italian readers

A previous study reported that, similar to young and adult skilled readers, Italian developmental dyslexics read pseudowords made up of a root and a derivational suffix faster and more accurately than simple pseudowords. Unlike skilled readers, only dyslexic and reading-matched younger children benefited from morphological structure in reading words aloud. In this study, we show that word frequency affects the probability of morpheme-based reading, interacting with reading ability. Young skilled readers named low- but not high-frequency morphologically complex words faster than simple words. By contrast, the advantage for morphologically complex words was present in poor readers irrespective of word frequency. Adult readers showed no facilitating effect of morphological structure. These results indicate that young readers use reading units (morphemes) that are larger than the single-grapheme grain size. It is argued that morpheme-based reading is important for obtaining reading fluency (rather than accuracy) in transparent orthographies and is useful particularly in children with limited reading ability who do not fully master whole-word processing.

How do roots and suffixes influence reading of pseudowords: A study of young Italian readers with and without dyslexia

The study explored the different influences of roots and suffixes in reading aloud morphemic pseudowords (e.g., vetr-ezza, “glass-ness”). Previous work on adults showed a facilitating effect of both roots and suffixes on naming times. In the present study, pseudoword stimuli including roots and suffixes in different combinations were administered to sixth-grade children with dyslexia (N=22) and skilled readers (N=44), matched for chronological age. Indeed, the sequential reading strategy of less proficient readers (particularly for pseudowords) should favour the emergence of differences between left and right constituents (root and suffix, respectively) in reading performance. Results showed that for both children with dyslexia and skilled young readers the onset of pronunciation depended exclusively on roots, while there was no significant effect of suffixes. However, both roots and suffixes led to higher levels of accuracy than matched orthographic strings of letters. Posthoc regression analyses confirmed the morphological nature of the root and suffix effects, over and above the effects of the frequency of their orthographic patterns. Results indicate that the position of the reading units within the letter string, as well as their differential effects on latencies and accuracy, should be taken into account by models of morphological processing in word recognition and reading and by applied intervention research.

A coding scheme for the evaluation of the relationship in music therapy sessions

This study presents a coding system for observation and monitoring of changes in the interactive behaviour between patient and therapist during music therapy sessions. The coding scheme was developed from a psychodynamic framework and mainly consists of four behavioural classes: Verbal Communication, Nonverbal Communication, Countenance, and Sonorous Musical Communication. The 15 minutes in the middle of each videotape concerning the first active music therapy session—based on the sonorous musical improvisation—were coded. Subjects were children (4 boys; 3 girls) ages 3 to 10 years (M age = 6.3), diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder, and seven therapists. The method for data collection was continuous recording, applied through The Observer Video-Pro 5.0. For the reliability indexes there was a substantial agreement between assessments by video raters.

Autism and music therapy. Intersubjective approach and music therapy assessment

Autism is a pathology in which the communicative and relational deficit is quite clear. After giving an up-to-date general view to the nosographic aspects and to the interpretative models of the Autistic Disorder, the authors focus on an improvisational music therapy approach in an intersubjective theoretical perspective. Coherently, with the theoretical frame and the clinical evidence, important process indicators were extrapolated into the analysed session. By using an appropriate coding scheme made to evaluate the music therapeutic process, the authors present an example analysis about the coding of some music therapys sessions of a clinical case of infantile autism. Such analysis highlighted the occurred changes within the sessions and it can be considered a useful tool for a longitudinal evaluation of the music therapeutic treatments.

Comparison of the music therapy coding scheme with the music therapy checklist

The Music Therapy Checklist is useful for music therapists to monitor and evaluate the music therapeutic process. A list of different types of behaviors were selected based on results derived from applying the Music Therapy Coding Scheme. The use of a checklist to code the events with a recording method based on 1-min. intervals allows observation without data-processing systems and drastically reduces coding time. At the same time, the checklist tags the main factors in musical interaction.

Does pronounceability modulate the letter string deficit of children with dyslexia? A study with the rate and amount model

The locus of the deficit of children with dyslexia in dealing with strings of letters may be a deficit at a pre-lexical graphemic level or an inability to bind orthographic and phonological information. We evaluate these alternative hypotheses in two experiments by examining the role of stimulus pronounceability in a lexical decision task (LDT) and in a forced-choice letter discrimination task (Reicher–Wheeler paradigm). Seventeen fourth grade children with dyslexia and 24 peer control readers participated to two experiments. In the LDT children were presented with high-, low-frequency words, pronounceable pseudowords (such as DASU) and unpronounceable non-words (such as RNGM) of 4-, 5-, or 6- letters. No sign of group by pronounceability interaction was found when over-additivity was taken into account. Children with dyslexia were impaired when they had to process strings, not only of pronounceable stimuli but also of unpronounceable stimuli, a deficit well accounted for by a single global factor. Complementary results were obtained with the Reicher–Wheeler paradigm: both groups of children gained in accuracy in letter discrimination in the context of pronounceable primes (words and pseudowords) compared to unpronounceable primes (non-words). No global factor was detected in this task which requires the discrimination between a target letter and a competitor but does not involve simultaneous letter string processing. Overall, children with dyslexia show a selective difficulty in simultaneously processing a letter string as a whole, independent of its pronounceability; however, when the task involves isolated letter processing, also these children can make use of the ortho-phono-tactic information derived from a previously seen letter string. This pattern of findings is in keeping with the idea that an impairment in pre-lexical graphemic analysis may be a core deficit in developmental dyslexia.

Word and pseudoword superiority effects in a shallow orthography language: the role of hemispheric lateralization.

The word superiority effect (WSE) has made it possible to demonstrate the automatic activation of lexical-orthographic entries in reading. The observation of this effect is important since it led to experimental support of the main cognitive reading models. These models were mostly developed on English data, hence the verification in different orthography systems is relevant. The present study tested WSE in Italian, a language in which this effect was predicted to be less constant given the highly consistent correspondence between orthography and phonology. Moreover, the presentation of the items in a lateralized visual field condition allowed testing of assumptions about the roles of the right and left hemispheres in written word recognition and, in particular, on the hemispheric lateralization of lexical processing. Two experiments were conducted with undergraduate students who had to recognize a target letter within a word, pseudoword, or nonword. In Experiment 1, prime and probe letters were in the same letter case, while in Experiment 2 they were in different letter cases. Error rates and reaction times were analyzed with mixed models. The results showed a superiority of pseudowords (pseudoword superiority effect; PSE) over illegal strings with no evidence of a clear superiority of words over pseudowords for both left and right visual field presentations. This suggests that in Italian, the sub-lexical route could play a major role in reading and that this route relies on a visual-perceptual orthographic coding concerning familiarity of letter combinations, which is also available to the right hemisphere.

List context effects in languages with opaque and transparent orthographies: a challenge for models of reading

This paper offers a review of data which show that reading is a flexible and dynamic process and that readers can exert strategic control over it. Two main hypotheses on the control of reading processes have been suggested: the route de-emphasis hypothesis and the time-criterion hypothesis. According to the former, the presence of irregular words in the list might lead to an attenuation of the non-lexical process, while the presence of non-words could trigger a de-emphasis of the lexical route. An alternative account is proposed by the time-criterion hypothesis whereby the reader sets a flexible deadline to initiate the response. According to the latter view, it is the average pronunciation difficulty of the items in the block that modulates the time-criterion for response. However, it is worth noting that the list composition has been shown to exert different effects in transparent compared to opaque orthographies, as the consistency of spelling-sound correspondences can influence the processing costs of the non-lexical pathway. In transparent orthographies, the non-lexical route is not resource demanding and can successfully contribute to the pronunciation of regular words, thus its de-emphasis could not be as useful/necessary as in opaque orthographies. The complex patterns of results from the literature on list context effects are a challenge for computational models of reading which face the problem of simulating strategic control over reading processes. Different proposals suggest a modification of parameter setting in the non-lexical route or the implementation of a new module aimed at focusing attention on the output of the more convenient pathway. Simulation data and an assessment of the models’ fit to the behavioral results are presented and discussed to shed light on the role of the cognitive system when reading aloud.

Orthographic Neighborhood-Size Effects on the Reading Aloud of Italian Children With and Without Dyslexia

This study examines the effects of orthographic neighborhood size (N-size) in relationship with word frequency on the reading aloud of children with and without dyslexia whose language has a consistent orthography. Participants included 22 Italian fourth-grade children with dyslexia and 44 age-matched typically developing readers. Children with dyslexia read low-frequency words with high N-size faster than words that had no neighbors; by contrast, typically developing readers showed no N-size effects, irrespective of word frequency. The facilitating effect of N-size on low-frequency word reading in children with dyslexia indicates that they benefit from lexical activation spreading from dense neighborhoods.