Impact of Motor Tasks and Lidocaine on Reading Unfamiliar Words in Adults With and Without Dyslexia

• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Trial end date: 2025-04-01

Summary

Recent claims report that reading ability is partially dependent on speech production. While the evidence for this claim is compelling, it is not known to what extent, the speech production system contributes to successful reading performance in adult populations with dyslexia. One direct way to determine the influence of speech production feedback on reading performance is to measure reading performance in adults with dyslexia with an added motor component (i.e., sucking on a lollipop, holding a bite bar or numbing their oral mucosa with lidocaine).

To adults with and without dyslexia 18 years of age and older (60 in total; 30 in each group), three experimental tasks will be administered under four conditions (no motor task, lollipop, bite bar and lidocaine). The first task asks whether the letter string being presented is a word or a nonword. Secondly, a motor sequencing task will be administered where adults will be asked to label pictures. For all tasks, the accuracy and speed of responses will be measured by a computer while participants wear a fNIRS cap.

• Phase: Phase 4

Details

• Lead Sponsor: University of Alberta
• Treatments: Lidocaine