American Dyslexia Association

Category: Dyslexia

  • Scientists May Have Found the Real Cause of Dyslexia—And a Way to Treat It

    Scientists May Have Found the Real Cause of Dyslexia—And a Way to Treat It

    Dyslexia is often described as trying to read letters as they jump around the page. Because of its connections to reading difficulties and trouble in school, the condition is often blamed on the brain. But according to a new study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the so-called learning disability may actually start in the eyes.

    As The Guardian reports, a team of French scientists say they’ve discovered a key physiological difference between the eyes of those with dyslexia and those without it. Our eyes have tiny light-receptor cells called rods and cones. The center of a region called the fovea is dominated by cones, which are also responsible for color perception.

    Just as most of us have a dominant hand, most have a dominant eye too, which has more neural connections to the brain. The study of 60 people, divided evenly between those with dyslexia and those without, found that in the eyes of non-dyslexic people, the arrangement of the cones is asymmetrical: The dominant eye has a round, cone-free hole, while the other eye has an unevenly shaped hole. However, in people with dyslexia, both eyes have the same round hole. So when they’re looking at something in front of them, such as a page in a book, their eyes perceive exact mirror images, which end up fighting for visual domination in the brain. This could explain why it’s sometimes impossible for a dyslexic person to distinguish a “b” from a “d” or an “E” from a “3”.

    These results challenge previous research that connects dyslexia to cognitive abilities. In a study published earlier this year, people with the condition were found to have a harder time remembering musical notes, faces, and spoken words. In light of the new findings, it’s unclear whether this is at the root of dyslexia or if growing up with vision-related reading difficulties affects brain plasticity.

    Continue reading article: https://www.dyslexia.me/?p=2283&preview=true

  • Dyslexia and Working Memory Go Hand in Hand—How to Help Students Remember More

    Dyslexia and Working Memory Go Hand in Hand—How to Help Students Remember More

    Samantha Cleaver on October 9, 2019

    Brought to you by Learning Ally

    As teachers, we know that when students have certain abilities,
    they’re better prepared for school and life. Working memory is one of
    those things. We know it when we see it: Students are organized, know exactly what to do after you’ve given directions, and are able to follow in-depth discussions.

    On the flip side, there are students who need extra help to develop their working memory. As it turns out, working memory and dyslexia go hand in hand, and there’s a lot we can do to help students with dyslexia remember more.

    What is working memory?

    In short, our working memory helps us hold and use information. It’s the cognitive process we use to hold some information in our minds while we retrieve other information. It’s also involved with recalling information, from a set of directions to a story. We’re using our working memory across the day—completing step-by-step math problems, following a recipe after reading it, or doing tasks like identifying rhyming words or sounding out multisyllabic words.

    Our working memory is small; only a few bits of information will fit at any time. That’s why, when you’re working through a math problem, you may have to refer back to it a few times to retrieve the information you lost. That’s also why it’s so frustrating for kids who struggle with poor working memory—everything seems to be passing them by.

    Children with dyslexia have a higher rate of working memory concerns. The rate of poor working memory in students with dyslexia and other learning disabilities ranges from 20 to 50 percent , compared to 10 percent of students overall. So, it’s something that you’re likely to see in classrooms. Here’s how to help:

    1. Give students personal reference charts.

    Reduce the amount that students have to keep in their working memory with personal reference charts. This gives them the chance to actually think through higher-order tasks because they don’t have to take energy to recall basic information (math facts, vocabulary words, editing notations). It also helps them complete tasks faster because they aren’t relying solely on their memory to get information.

    Teacher tip: Work with students to identify what information they have trouble recalling and show them how to create a personal reference chart. This teaches them to use this strategy throughout their lives.

    2. Place anchor charts strategically.

    Anchor charts are, really, a whole-class visual reference sheet, but they can also clutter your walls and make it difficult for students to identify which information they need to use now. Consider having rotating anchor charts at a specific space in your room where you can post the anchor chart that students should be using for the task at hand.

    3. Embrace audiobooks.

    For students with dyslexia, audiobooks remove the difficulty of sounding out words. This takes the pressure off their working memory so they can understand the story or content. Using a solution like Learning Ally, which provides kids with audiobooks that have options like highlighted text, lets kids enjoy books without taxing their working memory.
  • How Testing Kids For Skills Can Hurt Those Lacking Knowledge

    How Testing Kids For Skills Can Hurt Those Lacking Knowledge

    Excerpted from THE KNOWLEDGE GAP by Natalie Wexler, published by Avery, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2019 by Natalie Wexler.

    By Natalie Wexler

    In 1987, two researchers in Wisconsin, Donna Recht and Lauren Leslie, constructed a miniature baseball field and installed it in an empty classroom in a junior high school. They peopled it with four-inch wooden baseball players arranged to simulate the beginning of a game. Then they brought in sixty-four seventh- and eighth-grade students who had been tested both for their general reading ability and their knowledge of baseball.

    The goal was to determine to what extent a child’s ability to understand a text depended on her prior knowledge of the topic. Recht and Leslie chose baseball because they figured lots of kids in junior high school who weren’t great readers nevertheless knew a fair amount about the subject. Each student was asked to read a text
    describing half an inning of a fictional baseball game and move the wooden figures around the board to reenact the action described.

    Churniak swings and hits a slow bouncing ball toward the shortstop, the passage began. Haley comes in, fields it, and throws to first, but too late. Churniak is on first with a single, Johnson stayed on third. The next batter is Whitcomb, the Cougars’ left-fielder.

    It turned out that prior knowledge of baseball made a huge difference in students’ ability to understand the text—more of a difference than their supposed reading level. The kids who knew little about baseball, including the “good” readers, all did poorly. And among those who knew a lot about baseball, the “good” readers and the “bad” readers all did well. In fact, the bad readers who knew a lot about baseball outperformed the good readers who didn’t.

    In another study, researchers read preschoolers from mixed socioeconomic backgrounds a book about birds, a subject they had determined the higher-income kids already knew more about. When they tested comprehension, the wealthier children did significantly better. But then they read a story about a subject neither group knew anything about: made-up animals called wugs. When prior knowledge was equalized, comprehension was essentially the same. In other words, the gap in comprehension wasn’t a gap in skills. It was a gap in knowledge.

    The implication is clear: abstract “reading ability” is largely a mirage constructed by reading tests. A student’s ability to comprehend a text will vary depending on his familiarity with the subject; no degree of “skill” will help if he lacks the knowledge to understand it. While instruction in the early grades has focused on “learning to read” rather than “reading to learn,” educators have overlooked the fact that part of “learning to read” is acquiring knowledge.

    Continue with article here:

    https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/54054/how-testing-kids-for-skills-hurts-those-lacking-knowledge

  • Dyslexic Thinkers Aren’t Disabled Thinkers

    Dyslexic Thinkers Aren’t Disabled Thinkers

    In the world of reading, we know oral language is mapped on to symbols we recognize as the alphabet.

    This is a sound-symbol relationship. When an individual struggles to grasp this relationship, the label of ‘dyslexia’ is often applied, implying a learning disability. This approach assumes everyone thinks and processes incoming information alike.

    What if this is not the case? An architect ‘sees’ a building before drafting a blueprint. An engineer imagines a bridge, visualizing the piers. These visual thinkers imagine a world in three dimensions. Those with dyslexia exhibit visual and dimensional thinking as a stronger mental process.

    Now, imagine a Kindergartener being introduced to flat lines on paper that are supposed to carry sounds that have no meaning until blended together into words. In the dyslexic world, if the letter ‘R’ was three dimensional, looking down from the top, it would be a bar; from below, two small squares. Without directionality to hold the letter in place, how it is supposed to look? Lines anchor two-dimensional letters in place but what holds three-dimensions?

    Technology is changing the mental landscape. In the 14th century, few people could read so gossip was the mode of communication. Fast forward to the 20th century, with books, radio, and television engaging the visual and auditory senses, and eventually, computers and smartphones, adding touch. Today’s student thinks in all three modalities. Imagine thinking in live-action holographs, and you’d have a better idea of the mental processing of a dyslexic thinker.

    How do we teach someone who sees the world in holographic images? We begin with dimensions using real objects. By naming them, we add language, using the entire word initially.

    Before dyslexic thinkers can recognize letters in their proper position on a line, they need to examine them in dimensional space. By using pliable materials to shape symbols for 360-degree viewing, young learners begin to recognize how to place a letter properly on a line. By beginning with named objects, the entire word is connected to dimensions. Dyslexic thinkers need to take words apart to discover patterns rather than assembling these from isolated letters and sounds.

    This object – picture – sound – symbol approach creates a bridge for dimensional thinkers to move into the two-dimensional word of print and text.  Building a mental library of objects with their whole word label creates a resource for using careful observation to detect common patterns and relationship with words which do not contain a visual image such as ‘not’ or ‘is’ or words we know as function words.

    Continue reading article:

    https://www.teachthought.com/literacy/dyslexic-thinkers-arent-disabled-thinkers/

  • The Ladybug Known as “Lil”

    The Ladybug Known as “Lil”

    ADA has endorsed another award-winning rhyming story picture book by Robert Z. Hicks, “The Ladybug Known as Lil”.  The story has the flavor of  the wild west in the pumpkin patch.  Ant bursts in the door of the Pumpkin Club to warn the bugs that aphids are invading the garden, and on their way to Pumpkin Town!

    Ladybug Lil, singer at the Pumpkin Club, rides her roach through the night to find sheriff Bugaroo to save Pumpkin town from the dreaded Aphid Gang.  Will the sheriff and his posse reach Pumpkin Town in time?

    Will Lil see her beloved Pumpkin Club destroyed by the invading Aphids?

    Told in rhyme, “The Ladybug Known as Lil” is good for early readers.  The THINGS TO LEARN section has photos and information about the real insects that are characters in the story.

    Questions and Answers test comprehension.

    “The Ladybug Known as Lil”‘s trophy joins Mr. Bob’s collection of awards for “Tommie Turtle’s Secret”, “Mouse in the Manger”, and “Danny the Dragon”, all of which have met ADA’s standards for formatting and quality.  

    Ashley Otis, the artist who illustrates Bob’s books, has done a beautiful job of bringing Ladybug Lil to life!

    Available on Amazon and online bookstores.

    Books by Robert Z. Hicks on Amazon:

    See all books by Robert Z. Hicks

  • Dyslexia and the Brain

    Dyslexia and the Brain

    Researchers are continually conducting studies to learn more about the causes of dyslexia, early identification of dyslexia, and the most effective treatments for dyslexia.

    Developmental dyslexia is associated with difficulty in processing the orthography (the written form) and phonology (the sound structure) of language. As a way to understand the origin of these problems, neuroimaging studies have examined brain anatomy and function of people with and without dyslexia. These studies are also contributing to our understanding of the role of the brain in dyslexia, which can provide useful information for developing successful reading interventions and pinpointing certain genes that may also be involved.

    What is brain imaging?

    A number of techniques are available to visualize brain anatomy and function. A commonly used tool is magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which creates images that can reveal information about brain anatomy (e.g., the amount of gray and white matter, the integrity of white matter), brain metabolites (chemicals used in the brain for communication between brain cells), and brain function (where large pools of neurons are active). Functional MRI (fMRI) is based on the physiological principle that activity in the brain (where neurons are “firing”) is associated with an increase of blood flow to that specific part of the brain. The MRI signal bears indirect information about increases in blood flow. From this signal, researchers infer the location and amount of activity that is associated with a task, such as reading single words, that the research participants are performing in the scanner. Data from these studies are typically collected on groups of people rather than individuals for research purposes only—not to diagnose individuals with dyslexia.

    Which brain areas are involved in reading?

    Since reading is a cultural invention that arose after the evolution of modern humans, no single location within the brain serves as a reading center. Instead, brain regions that sub serve other functions, such as spoken language and object recognition, are redirected (rather than innately specified) for the purpose of reading (Dehaene & Cohen, 2007). Reading involves multiple cognitive processes, two of which have been of particular interest to researchers: 1) grapheme-phoneme mapping in which combinations of letters (graphemes) are mapped onto their corresponding sounds (phonemes) and the words are thus “decoded,” and 2) visual word form recognition for mapping of familiar words onto their mental representations. Together, these processes allow us to pronounce words and gain access to meaning. In accordance with these cognitive processes, studies in adults and children have demonstrated that reading is supported by a network of regions in the left hemisphere (Price, 2012), including the occipito-temporal, temporo-parietal, and inferior frontal cortices. The occipito-temporal cortex holds the “visual word form area.” Both the temporo-parietal and inferior frontal cortices play a role in phonological and semantic processing of words, with inferior frontal cortex also involved in the formation of speech sounds. These areas have been shown to change as we age (Turkeltaub, et al., 2003) and are altered in people with dyslexia (Richlan et al., 2011).

    What have brain images revealed about brain structure in dyslexia?

    Evidence of a connection between dyslexia and the structure of the brain was first discovered by examining the anatomy of brains of deceased adults who had dyslexia during their lifetimes. The left-greater-than-right asymmetry typically seen in the left hemisphere temporal lobe (planum temporale) was not found in these brains (Galaburda & Kemper, 1979), and ectopias (a displacement of brain tissue to the surface of the brain) were noted (Galaburda, et al., 1985). Then investigators began to use MRI to search for structural images in the brains of research volunteers with and without dyslexia. Current imaging techniques have revealed less gray and white matter volume and altered white matter integrity in left hemisphere occipito-temporal and temporo-parietal areas. Researchers are still investigating how these findings are influenced by a person’s language and writing systems.

    What have brain images revealed about brain function in dyslexia?

    Early functional studies were limited to adults because they employed invasive techniques that require radioactive materials. The field of human brain mapping greatly benefited from the invention of fMRI. fMRI does not require the use of radioactive tracers, so it is safe for children and adults and can be used repeatedly which facilitates longitudinal studies of development and intervention. First used to study dyslexia in 1996 (Eden et al., 1996), fMRI has since been widely used to study the brain’s role in reading and its components (phonology, orthography, and semantics). Studies from different countries have converged in findings of altered left-hemisphere areas (Richlan et al., 2011), including ventral occipito-temporal, temporo-parietal, and inferior frontal cortices (and their connections). Results of these studies confirm the universality of dyslexia across different world languages.

    Continue reading article: https://dyslexiaida.org/dyslexia-and-the-brain-fact-sheet/

  • Humans are born with brains ‘prewired’ to see words: Study finds connections to language areas of the brain

    Humans are born with brains ‘prewired’ to see words: Study finds connections to language areas of the brain

    Source:  Ohio State University

    Humans are born with a part of the brain that is prewired to be receptive to seeing words and letters, setting the stage at birth for people to learn how to read, a new study suggests.

    Analyzing brain scans of newborns, researchers found that this part of the brain — called the “visual word form area” (VWFA) — is connected to the language network of the brain.

    “That makes it fertile ground to develop a sensitivity to visual words — even before any exposure to language,” said Zeynep Saygin, senior author of the study and assistant professor of psychology at The Ohio State University.

    The VWFA is specialized for reading only in literate individuals. Some researchers had hypothesized that the pre-reading VWFA starts out being no different than other parts of the visual cortex that are sensitive to seeing faces, scenes or other objects, and only becomes selective to words and letters as children learn to read or at least as they learn language.

    “We found that isn’t true. Even at birth, the VWFA is more connected functionally to the language network of the brain than it is to other areas,” Saygin said. “It is an incredibly exciting finding.”

    Saygin, who is a core faculty member of Ohio State’s Chronic Brain Injury Program, conducted the study with graduate students Jin Li and Heather Hansen and assistant professor David Osher, all in psychology at Ohio State. Their results were published today in the journal Scientific Reports.

    The researchers analyzed fMRI scans of the brains of 40 newborns, all less than a week old, who were part of the Developing Human Connectome Project. They compared these to similar scans from 40 adults who participated in the separate Human Connectome Project.

    The VWFA is next to another part of visual cortex that processes faces, and it was reasonable to believe that there wasn’t any difference in these parts of the brain in newborns, Saygin said.

    As visual objects, faces have some of the same properties as words do, such as needing high spatial resolution for humans to see them correctly.

    But the researchers found that, even in newborns, the VWFA was different from the part of the visual cortex that recognizes faces, primarily because of its functional connection to the language processing part of the brain.

    “The VWFA is specialized to see words even before we’re exposed to them,” Saygin said.

    “It’s interesting to think about how and why our brains develop functional modules that are sensitive to specific things like faces, objects, and words,” said Li, who is lead author of the study.

    “Our study really emphasized the role of already having brain connections at birth to help develop functional specialization, even for an experience-dependent category like reading.”

    The study did find some differences in the VWFA in newborns and adults.

    “Our findings suggest that there likely needs to be further refinement in the VWFA as babies mature,” Saygin said.

    “Experience with spoken and written language will likely strengthen connections with specific aspects of the language circuit and further differentiate this region’s function from its neighbors as a person gains literacy.”

    Continue reading article here:

    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201022125525.htm

  • Why Are Some Bilingual People Dyslexic in English but Not Their Other Language?

    Why Are Some Bilingual People Dyslexic in English but Not Their Other Language?

    Featured Neuroscience

     

     

  • School-based Identification of Characteristics of Dyslexia: Parent Overview

    School-based Identification of Characteristics of Dyslexia: Parent Overview

    By: Tennessee Center for the Study and Treatment of Dyslexia
    Learn how schools use screening and progress monitoring tools to identify dyslexia characteristics, and then implement reading interventions for students who need dyslexia-specific instruction. You’ll also find out about classroom accommodations and modifications that can help your child learn, as well as information about referrals for special education.

    This article is adapted from a parent resource developed by the Tennessee Center for the Study and Treatment of Dyslexia. Check with your state’s Department of Education to find out more about screening and interventions.

    Dyslexia defined

    Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin and is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction.

    Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.

    Dyslexia overview

    This overview of dyslexia is presented by Dr. Tim Odegard, Professor of Psychology at the Tennessee Center for the Study and Treatment of Dyslexia at Middle Tennessee State University.

    School-based identification of the characteristics of dyslexia

    Many public schools are required to screen students for characteristics of dyslexia and provide dyslexia-specific interventions to those who are identified. Public schools do not assess and formally diagnose dyslexia; however, the identification of characteristics of dyslexia is sufficient to plan for and implement reading intervention for those students. Schools have procedures in place through the Response to Instruction and Intervention (RTI2) framework (or other similar means) to support this screening and identification.

    Continue reading the article here:

    https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/assessment-and-evaluation/articles/school-based-identification-characteristics-dyslexia

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