GRAPHOGAME

Full title: .Training grapheme-phoneme correlations with a child-friendly computer game in preschool children with familial risk of dyslexia.

Graphogame project is funded by Marie Curie Excellence Grants under the European Commission.s 6th Framework Programme, Structuring the European Research Area. The project also belongs to the Academy of Finland.s Center of Excellence in Learning and Motivation Research. The Graphogame -project is hosted by the Agora Center at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. The four year project started in January 2005.

The main objective of the European research project is to investigate the effects of training with a child friendly computerized grapheme-phoneme correspondence game on alleviation and possible prevention of severe problems in reading and spelling acquisition at preschool age in several language contexts, English, Dutch, German and Finnish, within Europe. The aim is that children actively train the important correspondences through an interesting game and learn through good representations of grapheme-phoneme correspondences on which they can form a solid foundation for their reading acquisition. The orthography of a language has an extensive influence on reading acquisition, and thus, by including different types of orthographies into the research will ensure that the outcomes of the research will be generalizable.

A mathematics version of the software .MATHVENTURE. for the purpose of identifying children with predisposition to dyscalculia or co-morbidity between dyslexia and dyscalculia is also being developed in collaboration with another EU-funded network .NUMBRA. (numeracy and brain development). In setting different implementation times for both literacy and mathematics training, this ensures that all interested can take part in the interventions while, at the same time, allows assessment of the efficacy of these interventions with control groups.

The team includes researchers using behavioral and psychophysiological (fMRI, ERP) methods. In addition, the collaborators of the research team will be doing conformational analysis in genetics.