Department of Psychiatry,
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences,
Little Rock, AR
J Learn Disabil 1991 Nov;24(9):542-9
Abstract
Sixty children with dyslexia (41 boys, 19 girls; ages 9 to 13) were enrolled in a 10-week summer tutoring program that emphasized word-building skills. They were randomly and blindly assigned to receive either placebo or
piracetam, a purportedly memory-enhancing drug that has been reported to facilitate reading skill acquisition. The children were subtyped as "dysphonetic" or "phonetic" on the basis of scores from tests of phonological sensitivity and phoneme-grapheme correspondence skills. Of the 53 children who completed the program, 37 were classified as dysphonetic and 16 as phonetic. The phonetic group improved significantly more in word-recognition ability than the dysphonetic group. Overall, the children on medication did not improve more than the nonmedicated ones in any aspect of reading. The phonetic subgroup on
piracetam gained more in word recognition than any subgroup but did not improve significantly more than the phonetic subgroup on placebo. Results are
discussed in relation to findings from previous studies of piracetam
in children with dyslexia.
