**6. Conclusions**

control group. In addition, dyslexics who participated in the phoneme, syllable, and onset‐ rime conditions made a greater number of requests during computer‐based word reading under conditions that required extensive phonological computation (low‐frequency words and long words). However, the reading time was higher for long words in the phoneme group. These results show that training in phonological processes improves word recognition

Another study [63] analyzed whether the *Tradislexia* videogame affected phonological awareness, considering separately the complexity of the syllable structure and the type of phonological awareness task, and word recognition in children with dyslexia. The results showed that when the phoneme position was controlled, multimedia training in segmentation and blending with words that include consonant‐vowel syllables was a better predictor

Unfortunately, programs designed to remediate the deficit in phonological processing, although beneficial, are not sufficient to achieve fluent word recognition in children with dyslexia. In fact, 90% of intervention studies include measures of reading accuracy, but not reading fluency [64]. Consequently, in recent years, some studies [65–68] have analyzed the

For example, one study analyzed the efficacy of a multicomponent program to improve reading fluency in Spanish children with dyslexia, called Velocilector [65–68]. This program integrates multiple instructional components that meet rigorous scientific standards for effectiveness (see **Table 3** for a description of instructional components). Special needs teachers were trained in the application of the program. Instruction was delivered one to one. The effects of the training program were evaluated using gains in scores on word and pseudoword reading and text‐reading fluency, as well as on a text comprehension test. Results showed that children who participated in the intervention obtained statistically significant gains on the reading measures used, with the exception of text comprehension, spelling, and

Another study [65] analyzed the effectiveness of a computerized reading acceleration program (RAP), which is a different approach to improving reading fluency problems. The Spanish version consists of 600 sentences with comprehension questions with three alternative answers. Each child was trained during 20 sessions lasting for 30 min each over a period of 4 weeks (about 10 h of training). In each session, the children worked individually on the computer with 30 sentences with the corresponding questions, under the supervision of a previously trained graduate student. The sentences appeared one at a time on the computer screen. After reading a sentence, the children pressed the space bar, and the text disappeared. Next, a comprehension question appeared with three alternative answers. The children had to choose the correct answer by pressing a key on the computer. During the training, all the children were presented with the same set of sentences in the same order. The results of the accelerated reading training showed that children with dyslexia improved their reading speed on sentences, their level of reading comprehension, and their naming speed on letter and pseudoword‐read-

ing time, providing empirical evidence for the acceleration phenomenon in Spanish.

efficacy of intervention programs mainly designed to improve reading fluency.

in children with dyslexia who learn to read in a consistent orthography.

of improvements in word‐decoding processes.

52 Learning Disabilities - An International Perspective

reading motivation [62, 66–68].

Spanish‐speaking children learn to read words written in a relatively transparent orthography. That is, the orthography‐phonology mapping is completely rule‐governed across the language, although it is less transparent in writing. Thus, to some extent, the characteristics of the Spanish language influence the prevalence and manifestations of dyslexia in Spanish.

Mainly during the past three decades, many studies have addressed the analysis of the characteristics and manifestations of dyslexia in Spanish. In general, the research carried out has followed in the wake of studies developed in less transparent languages [65], although there was no educational legislation in Spain that explicitly includes specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia [10–12]. Thus, several studies have shown that in Spanish, as in other transparent orthographies, reading speed/fluency seems to be more evident and relevant than accuracy.

In addition, the prevalence of dyslexia is much lower in Spanish than in less transparent orthographies, ranging from 3 to 6%, approximately, with little (1.4:1 male to female ratio) or no evidence of gender‐related differences in transparent orthographies. Therefore, the existence of dyslexic subtypes could be the consequence of differences in orthographic systems, and the percentages of dyslexic subtypes in Spanish and opaque orthographies are quite different [69]. For this reason, surface dyslexics were classified between 45.5 and 53% and phonological dyslexics between 18 and 22.8%, respectively.

Different studies using reading‐age‐ and/or chronological‐age‐matched designs have also found that Spanish students with developmental dyslexia have numerous lags in several cognitive (e.g., phonological awareness, speech perception, temporal processing, rapid naming, verbal and visual‐spatial working memory, and executive functioning domains) and academic (e.g., pseudoword reading, spelling, and vocabulary, prosody) areas. In fact, these cognitive and academic difficulties persist into adulthood.

Many children who feel like failures in school, for one reason or another, tend to have low expectations of learning achievement, a poorer academic self‐concept, a maladaptive attributional pattern for their successes and failures, and little motivation to read or be involved in school activities that require reading. Thus, children with dyslexia have a lower self‐concept, and even a lower‐reading self‐concept, presumably caused by their academic failure. Moreover, studies that have analyzed the attributional patterns of children with dyslexia show that although some students have an adaptive attributional pattern, other students with dyslexia have a completely maladaptive pattern. In other words, they explain their successes by referring to external causes (luck, low difficulty level of the task, help from others, etc.), and their failures tend to be attributed to internal and uncontrollable causes, such as low ability.

Finally, research carried out to analyze the efficacy of intervention procedures with students with dyslexia in the Spanish language is quite scarce, compared to research developed to characterize their difficulties in different areas [55]. Most interventions have evaluated the efficacy of different treatment approaches, mainly based on a combination of intensive, systematic training in letter‐sound correspondence, phonemic awareness, and even speech perception. In recent years, different fluency‐based programs have emerged. One of them is a multicomponent program that combines repeated readings with phonemic awareness and grapheme‐phoneme rules, along with a motivational component with social reward and attributional retraining. Another one is the application of a computerized‐reading acceleration program. In general, the remediation research developed in Spain follows the program development tendencies found in international research, especially in less transparent languages.
