Diagnosis and rehabilitation attempt of a patient with acquired dyslexia

Although dyslexia is a common consequence of brain damage there are few studies about therehabilitation of this disorder. Cognitive Neuropsychology models of reading have been used to describe severalsyndromes of acquired dyslexia. Phonological dyslexia is a reading disorder characterized by a dysfunctionalgrapheme-to-phoneme conversion procedure, which affects the ability to read low frequency words and nonwords. Lexical reading is preserved and patients can read frequent words (regular and irregular). OBJECTIVE: Verify the application of the cognitive model in the characterization of the reading disorder of a patient with acquired dyslexia and in the devising and implementation of a rehabilitation plan. METHODS: This study presents OCS, a 57-year-old patient who suffered from acquired phonological dyslexia after a left temporo-parietooccipital ischemic stroke. A rehabilitation program based on the principles of Cognitive Neuropsychology was devised non-words and low frequency words with controlled lengths were used and the patient was stimulated to read them aloud in a 22-session treatment. RESULTS: The post-test evaluation showed quantitative and qualitative improvements Significant improvements were verified in the total number of correct responses including self-correction attempts (p<0.01) and in the reading of trisyllabic and polysyllabic non-words of simple syllabic structure (p=0.0007 and p=0.02 respectively). CONCLUSIONS: The use of the cognitive model to devise a rehabilitation program was successful and we observed significant improvement of reading skills in a short period of treatment. The achievements over this period provided the patient with functional reading performance.