Deficits in reading performance may differ in etiology depending on the IQ of the individuals who have the deficits. According to an article in Behavior Genetics, Professor Sally Wadsworth and colleagues confirmed previous research showing that there is a stronger genetic element in the reading deficits of children with higher IQs (mean = 108.97 ± 6.71) than those with lower IQ (mean = 82.85 ± 6.40). The heritability for the former group is 0.75 ± 0.12, but for the latter it is 0.50 ± 0.10.
Continue reading ‘More on IQ and reading disabilities’
Archive for the 'Dyslexia' Category
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A research team in Professor Leo Blomert’s lab at Maastricht University in the Netherlands reported that brain scans of children with and without dyslexia reveal differences when associating letters with sounds. Vera Blau and colleagues studied 34 9-½-year-old children, 18 of whom were identified as having dyslexia. While the children completed tasks under four different conditions (letters presented only visually; speech sounds presented alone; multi-sensory matching letter–sound pairs; and multi-sensory not-matching letter–sound pairs), the researchers obtained scans of brain activity. They found that in the brains of children with dyslexia there were weaker effects when letters and sounds matched than in the brains of children without dyslexia; these effects appeared most clearly in certain areas of the brain related to language function. In addition, the dyslexic readers’ brains showed weaker activation when speech sounds were the only stimulus (i.e., without accompanying letters).
Continue reading ‘Letter-sound correspondences: New scanning data’
Seventh grader Samantha Ravelli, of Ocean City (NJ, US), is probably one of the youngest lobbyists who ever tasted success. According to Diane D’Amico of the Press of Atlantic City, Sammie (and her team, including her mother and sister) convinced their legislature to form the New Jersey Reading Disabilities Task Force.
Sammie has substantial reading problems, and her contacts with legislators inspired them to draft legislation creating the task force. Assemblymen Nelson Albano and Matt Milam and state Senator Jeff Van Drew collaborated to get it passed. It cleared the assembly in February and the senate in December 2009.
As a part of their efforts to promote awareness of dyslexia and to encourage legislators to create the task force, the Ravellis created Sammie’s Mission. Visit it and also read Ms. D’Amico’s blog post How Sammies’s dyslexia inspired a law and her news story, State Senate approves bill to form reading disabilities task force, about the events. Finally, snag a pdf of “An Act establishing the New Jersey Reading Disabilities Task Force.”
Sphere: Related ContentOn the US National Public Radio (NPR) this morning, reporter Joe Palca reports about tagging along to the ceremonies attended by Carol Greider, who was honored with a Nobel Prize with Jack Szostak and Elizabeth Blackburn for their groundbreaking work about telomeres (during Professor Greider’s graduate studies!). For those who are not familiar with Professor Greider’s history, it includes the difficulites that accompany having dyslexia. Professor Greider, who is a molecular biologist at Johns Hopkins University and one of only 10 women who have received the prestigious award, seems to have a great time in Mr. Palca’s story.
Continue reading ‘Carol Greider at the Nobel ceremonies’
Writing in the journal Neuron, Timothy Keller and Marcel Just reported that they have found changes in children’s neural anatomy that appear to be a consequence of improved reading performance. Whereas previous studies, many of which I’ve mentioned in these posts, have shown changes in the blood flow in children’s brains as a consequence of reading instruction, the findings from Keller and Marcel showed that there are changes in the physical tissue in the brain following remedial reading instruction.
Continue reading ‘Remediation changes brain structures’
Sphere: Related ContentSheri Berkeley and colleagues reported the results of a meta-analysis of research on reading comprehension interventions for students with Learning Disabilities in a forthcoming issue of Remedial and Special Education. Although their results echo findings from earlier meta-analyses and narrative reviews, they were able to add refinements to educators’ understanding of ways to promote students’ understanding of what they read. They propose that the common element in successful interventions was “teach[ing] students to attend more carefully or to think more systematically about text as it was being read.”
Continue reading ‘Promoting reading comprehension’
Over the holiday weekend, Liz Ditz sent me the reference to a study that I have now downloaded and read. I’m reporting my notes here. I see that she has a related post over on her blog, I Speak of Dreams.
In “Developmental Delay Syndromes: Psychometric Testing Before and After Chiropractic Treatment of 157 Children,” Scott Cuthbert and Michel Barras present the results of an analysis of pretest-posttest scores for children who received chiropractic treatment at a clinic in Lausanne (CH). They reported that the children had higher scores after treatment, leading them to conclude that “This report suggests that a multimodal chiropractic method that assesses and treats motor dysfunction reduced symptoms and enhanced the cognitive performance in this group of children.”
Here is the abstract for this report. After it, I’ll explain why I find this study provides uncompelling evidence in support of chiropractic treatment for Learning Disabilities.
Continue reading ‘Additional weak evidence about chiropractic treatment’
Paul Bates and colleagues have reported new findings about the gene DYX1C1, which has been a focal point for research on genetic contributions to dyslexia for at least six years. Writing for the journal Molecular Psychiatry, the research team revealed that their examination of the relationship between DYX1C1 and variations in reading ability points at certain variations in genes and reading ability. Specific differences in individual nucleotides (single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs), different from those reported previously, appear to be associated with ability and disability in reading and spelling.
The status of DYX1C1 (C15q21.3) as a susceptibility gene for dyslexia is unclear. We report the association of this gene with reading and spelling ability in a sample of adolescent twins and their siblings. Family-based association analyses were carried out on 13 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in DYX1C1, typed in 790 families with up to 5 offspring and tested on 6 validated measures of lexical processing (irregular word) and grapheme–phoneme decoding (pseudo-word) reading- and spelling-based measures of dyslexia, as well as a short-term memory measure. Significant association was observed at the misssense mutation rs17819126 for all reading measures and for spelling of lexical processing words, and at rs3743204 for both irregular and nonword reading. Verbal short-term memory was associated with rs685935. Support for association was not found at rs3743205 and rs61761345 as previously reported by Taipale et al., but these SNPs had very low (0.002 for rs3743205) minor allele frequencies in this sample. These results suggest that DYX1C1 influences reading and spelling ability with additional effects on short-term information storage or rehearsal. Missense mutation rs17819126 is a potential functional basis for the association of DYX1C1 with dyslexia.
Continue reading ‘The gene DYX1C1 and reading and spelling’
Sphere: Related ContentIn “11 Celebrities Who Overcame Dyslexia” on Mental Floss, Scott Allen posted a list of people who have dyslexia and whose names many people recognize. His lead tells the tale.
Sphere: Related ContentOn Monday, molecular biologists Carol Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn became the first two women to share the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Greider also joined Pierre Curie and Archer Martin among the handful of individuals with dyslexia who have won a Nobel Prize. In honor of Greider’s accomplishment and National Dyslexic Awareness Month, here’s a brief background on dyslexia and 11 other dyslexic celebrities.
Dyslexia in Brief
Continue reading ‘Celebrities with dyslexia’
Update: NJ gov. signs law creating dyslexia task force.
As reported earlier on LD Blog under the headline “New Jersey task force on reading disabilities created, seventh-grader Samantha Ravelli, of Ocean City (NJ, US), is having effects on public policy. The Associated Press reported 17 January 2010 that the law she lobbied her legislators to pass has been signed by the Governor of New Jersey.
Now that this panel is law, let’s hope the folks who become members of the panel will take the sensible step of drawing from evidence-based practices in making recommendations for reading instruction in New Jersey. Read the Associated Press story, “ N.J. measure will benefit reading-disabled students.”
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