Individual cognitive training of reading disability improves word identification and sentence comprehension in adults with mild mental retardation

Reading therapy has been shown to be effective in treating reading disabilities (RD) in dyslexic children, but little is known of its use in subjects with mild mental retardation (MR). Twenty adult volunteers, with both RD and mild MR, underwent 60 consecutive weeks in a cognitive remediation program, and were compared with 32 untreated control subjects. The experimental group showed a significant improvement in word identification, as measured by oral production (p = 0.0004) or silent reading (p = 0.023), and sentence comprehension (p = 0.0002). Adults with MR appear to benefit from new approaches in the field of RD.