we've known for some time what children
with dyslexia look like in terms of
their reading skills skills in areas of
language like rhyming and what's called
phonemic awareness but the brain
research has really added to this by
showing us what the brain looks like
when people read and what the brain
looks like for people with dyslexia read
and there are some differences when we
think about reading we need to remember
that we are really probing a person's
ability to understand that words are
made up of sounds and that those sounds
have a representation in their written
counterparts and the letters and this is
where things can can become very
difficult for a child understanding that
a word that sounds just like one
continuous sound like cat or dog is
actually made up of three sounds that
are joined together so seamlessly that
you would hardly know that they are in
fact three sounds and because of that I
represented by these three letters key
takeaway dyslexia involves trouble
connecting the sounds that make up words
with the letters that represent those
sounds something that many of us take
for granted and forget is just how
complicated reading is there's nothing
about our brain that was designed to
learn to read when our brains learn to
read we rearrange them quite
significantly and we draw on a range of
skills that were designed to do other
things
there are same mechanisms that we use
when we read which is accessing the
sound representation of language that
area in the brain is involved when we
read it's clearly become directed
towards reading and not just spoken
language and it is integrated with areas
in the back of the brain that help us
recognize words that we then at some
point begin to recognize by sight
because the oral part of language is
important in helping us put the sound
representation on words but after we see
a certain word a number of times we
don't necessarily have to sound it out
every time but we begin to move it to a
part of the brain that helps us visually
support recognize
a word by sight the more we see those
words the less we have to actually sound
those words out but we recognize them
almost like a picture and it does seem
that in fact the area in our brain that
we used to see pictures and our visual
environment becomes hijacked by the by
reading it literally reading as it
establishes in the brain says move over
now I'm going to use this part of the
brain to help us recognize word forms
and then we also have a part of the
brain that helps us pronounce the word
and pull out the right pronunciation and
that's in the front of the brain so
reading is made up of different
components and likewise what we see in
the brain is a network that reflects
those different components that we use
for reading key takeaway reading uses
different parts of the brain to sound
out unfamiliar words recognize familiar
words by sight think about how to
pronounce the words when we study
children or adults with dyslexia we find
that some of those areas aren't
activated quite the same as they are and
people who do not have dyslexia the
imaging research has given us kind of a
very nice inside view of the reading
brain and how it differs in struggling
readers and it's also given us an
opportunity to ask the question what
happens in children or adults who have
had difficulties with reading when they
are given some tutoring and they're
given the skills that they need to sound
out those words to really apply the code
to allow them to pronounce the words and
get better and more fluent at doing that
the research shows that if you are very
explicit in instructing children about
the rules of phonics and understanding
how language is structured and then how
it relates to the written counterpart
and if you use methods that show
children in a very structured way in a
very intensive way how that works that
that really is a key component to a
successful intervention and once you
understand the relationship between
sounds and let
and you can read you then need some time
to become a more fluid we give your
brain the time to not just increase the
skills and phonological processing but
also now have the experience of
encountering words again and again so
that you can commit them to your visual
word memory and have the practice and
then go on to use that skill to derive
meaning what isn't considered an
effective intervention are the kinds of
things that focus on trying to train I
move in control trying to change a
child's ability to balance and those
kinds of things key takeaway effective
interventions for kids with dyslexia
teach the relationship between sounds
and letters in a very explicit and
structured way help struggling readers
recognize words they have seen before do
not focus on things like balance or eye
movement really at the heart of dyslexia
is a difficulty in mapping language to
print and it's that skill that these
interventions really address as a way to
give the child the key that they need to
access written language and the imaging
has shown us areas in the brain that now
after the intervention has occurred and
after their reading is improved air is
an increase in brain activity and other
areas that are compensating and helping
out to make that person a better reader
and those kinds of insights tell us
something about the mechanisms of
reading and and struggling readers and
perhaps why certain brain areas
participate in the process of making a
person a stronger reader and that's
where the neuroscience insight helps the
scientists can look at those brain
changes and deduce from that well what
are the areas in the brain that support
that change and why those areas is it
the language areas in the left
hemisphere that we use for language and
reading or is it some other areas and
the researchers use that information to
try and understand why those brain air
is why did they change and what is it
about their relationship to the
intervention that makes this a good
intervention key takeaway researchers
are using brain imaging to
understand how structured literacy
interventions help people with dyslexia
one of the things that we're learning
from brain imaging is how malleable the
brain is in several different ways so
for example when we learn to read our
brain is changing quite dramatically
through that process people who become
skilled readers differ from those who
never learned to read in brain anatomy
and brain function so reading itself is
a process that changes the brain and
then the other thing we can do is ask
questions about well what about children
who are struggling readers and adults
who are struggling readers maybe as an
adult you would think you can't make any
more gains in reading but in fact you
can and your brain is still changing
changing in ways to support those skills
to make you become a better reader key
takeaway our brains are very changeable
even adults with dyslexia can change
their brains to become better readers
and what we also now beginning to see
with brain imaging research is a focus
on other skills that we have skills that
maybe even be enhanced in people with
dyslexia so now we see sort of a new
phase of research where people are
beginning to ask questions like why is
it that we hear reports of people with
dyslexia being better at seeing the big
picture maybe at being better at visual
spatial skills so working in a visual
environment and being very good at
pulling together a lot of visual
information and seeing the big picture
key takeaway researchers are beginning
to study visual spatial skills and other
strengths that may be linked to dyslexia
if you translate that into a laboratory
environment you may test that by asking
people to see images where your ability
to detect differences really require you
on taking in the big picture then rather
than just focusing on a detail and those
have shown that people with dyslexia
when faced with that kind of a task are
better than those who do not have
dyslexia and now the question with the
imaging is how is that information
processed in the brain and how does it
speak to the
differences that we see in those brains
is there a trade-off does does the
dyslexia come with a heightened skill or
does the experience with dyslexia
produce that heightened skill and what
does that look like in the brain key
takeaways different parts of the brain
are used to sound out unfamiliar words
recognize familiar words by sight and
pronounce the words effective reading
interventions can change the brains of
kids and adults who have dyslexia brain
researchers are starting to study
strengths that may be linked to dyslexia