Children can overcome dyslexia through nursery rhymes and music

Tuesday 26th May 2015 07:37 EDT
 
 

A leading neuroscientist, Usha Goswami, Prof. Of Cognitive Developmental Neuroscience at Cambridge has suggested that children can overcome dyslexia by learning nursry rhymes, singing and dancing, as the condition is caused by the lack of rhythm in the brain.

Dyslexia is said to be one of the most common learning difficulties. Up to 1 in every 10 people in the UK are estimated to have a certain degree of dyslexia. Additionally, Britain has one of the worst rates as the language is proving to be very difficult for them to learn.

Usha Goswami has spent 10 years testing youngsters' brains to figure out what was urging the learning obstacle. She found that dyslexia is not caused by children reading words incorrectly; instead, it was their inability to hear the rhythm of words when they are being spoken.

Goswami stated, “We realised that children are struggling in tasks which are not related to learning or reading but are related to rhythm. So we began to think that rhythm and these problems found in children with dyslexia might be related.”

Prof Goswami endorses clapping games, music, nursery rhymes and marching to The Grand Old Duke of York in order to help children with dyslexia. “All kinds of rhythmic experiences can be helpful, nursery rhymes, dancing and music as long as the beat is matched to language. Playground clapping and games may be very important to stopping dyslexia. You could start to remediate it before children even start school.”

Goswami further stated, “If children keep it up they will learn to read. It will definitely happen. The brain just needs more training. These children need to know that their brain just works a bit differently and reading is going to be harder for them.”


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