Beschreibung:
<jats:p><jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">D</jats:styled-content>uchenne muscular dystrophy (<jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">DMD</jats:styled-content>) is a progressive genetic condition that affects both muscle and brain. Children with <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">DMD</jats:styled-content> are at risk of psycho‐social difficulties such as poor academic achievement and behavioural and socio‐emotional problems. This article by <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">J</jats:styled-content>anet <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">H</jats:styled-content>oskin and <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">A</jats:styled-content>ngela <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">F</jats:styled-content>awcett, both from the <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">U</jats:styled-content>niversity of <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">S</jats:styled-content>wansea, describes how 34 participants with <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">DMD</jats:styled-content> took part in a 36‐week online literacy intervention which was delivered in partnership between home and school. The key objective was to improve reading skill. Participants were re‐tested at 36 weeks for single word and text level reading, comprehension, fluency, processing and timed single word reading. Pre and post results indicated that children who followed the intervention for 36 weeks made significant improvement in their single word reading (p = <0.0001), timed single word reading (p = <0.0001) and text level reading (p = <0.004). They also made significant improvement in their fluency and comprehension scores. The results showed that children with <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">DMD</jats:styled-content> and related literacy difficulties benefit from a regular, structured and systematic synthetic phonics programme. With young people with <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">DMD</jats:styled-content> increasingly living into adulthood, early literacy intervention is particularly important to ensure optimum career and training opportunities.</jats:p>