Distinctive brain pattern may underlie dyslexia

MIT: A distinctive neural signature found in the brains of people with dyslexia may explain why these individuals have difficulty learning to read, according to a new study from MIT neuroscientists. The researchers discovered that in people with dyslexia, the brain has a diminished ability to acclimate to a repeated input — a trait known as neural adaptation. For example, when dyslexic students see the same word repeatedly, brain regions involved in reading do not show the same adaptation seen in typical readers.

Please don't label dyslexic children!

Newcastle: Labelling a child dyslexic could have an impact on the way teachers educate them, according to research by Newcastle University. A study by Dr Simon Gibbs found primary school teachers responded differently when asked questions about teaching children with “dyslexia” to children with “reading difficulties”. The research indicates that teachers felt their efforts in the classroom would be more likely to help children with “reading difficulties” than “dyslexia” – despite children often receiving different diagnoses for very similar behaviours or symptoms, depending on how they were tested and who carried it out.

Education could help treat dyslexia

Scimex: Developmental dyslexia - characterised by trouble reading despite a normal intelligence - is a condition that runs in families and has a genetic basis, which means it is often assumed that nothing can be done to treat it. Now, a UK expert has rejected that notion and argued that educational interventions could help improve the reading skills of individuals suffering from the condition. Children's reading difficulties are not just caused by poor teaching; they often run in families and have a genetic basis. A common misunderstanding of such evidence is the idea there is a 'dyslexia' gene that can be used in screening. This is unrealistic because the genetic influences are complex, and involve the combined effect of many genetic variants, each of which has a small influence. Furthermore, people often assume that a genetic basis means nothing can be done. That is not the case: just as we can treat genetically-based visual problem with spectacles, so we should be able to treat reading problems with tailored educational interventions.

A Brain System that Appears To Compensate for Autism, OCD, and Dyslexia

Georgetown University. US: Individuals with five neurodevelopmental disorders — autism spectrum disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette syndrome, dyslexia, and specific language impairment (SLI) — appear to compensate for dysfunction by relying on a single powerful and nimble system in the brain known as declarative memory.

Dyslexia

Authors: Drs Sally and Bennett Shaywitz Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity Yale University
2008-09-08

What is dyslexia? Developmental dyslexia is an unexpected difficulty in reading. Unexpected refers to children and adults who appear to have all the factors necessary to become good readers: intelligence, motivation, and exposure to reasonable reading instruction - and yet struggle to read. Here, for ease of communication. We will refer to “developmental dyslexia” as simply “dyslexia”; it is also referred to as specific reading disability.
Dyslexia, first described over a century ago by a British physician, is the most common and most carefully studied of the learning disabilities, affecting 80% of all individuals identified as learning disabled.