Complex Pitch Perception Deficits in Dyslexia Persist Regardless of Previous Musical Experiences

What is it about?

The goal of this project was to explore the relationship between previous musical experiences and auditory perception in young adults with dyslexia. To become good readers, we need to be able to distinguish different speech sounds, and good auditory perception can help this skill. We found that, even with previous musical experiences such as formal training or informal experiences in the childhood home, young adults with dyslexia still performed worse on two auditory perception tasks compared to their typically reading peers. However, having more music experience was linked to better performance on these tasks among individuals with dyslexia. Our results also suggest that difficulty with simple pitch discrimination may interfere with learning of complex acoustic categories in dyslexia, which could help to explain difficulties with speech sound learning in this population.

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Why is it important?

There is growing interest in using music training as an intervention for reading difficulties. In order to determine if this type of intervention is effective, we first need to better understand how auditory perception skills are connected to reading. Our study helps to explain how musical experiences may impact auditory perception in young adults with dyslexia and provides directions for future research. This research can be used to guide future work to create more effective interventions for reading.