MONDAY, Feb. 24, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- A remedial program that helps dyslexic children read better also improves activity in the part of the brain linked to the learning disorder, bringing the region closer to that of normal children.
That's the conclusion of a new study that its authors believe is the first to document brain function changes in children with dyslexia by using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans.
"The most important finding of the study is that brain dysfunction in dyslexia, which has been shown [to occur] in other studies, can actually be changed and made better to a large degree with a training program that is dealing with their behavior and their reading," says Elise Temple, lead author of the study.
However, one dyslexia expert says the findings, while promising, are preliminary and more research is needed to see if the improvements in reading and brain function are permanent.
The findings appear in this week's online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability that results in difficulties with reading, writing and spelling. It may affect up to 17 percent of the population, says Temple, an assistant professor of human development at Cornell University.
"One of the real problems people with dyslexia have," Temple says, "is actually at the level of understanding the sound in the words they read -- to know, for instance, that the sounds 'ca,' 'a' and 't' make up the word cat. That's called phonological processing. And many researchers are finding that's the crux of the problem."
Temple and her colleagues tracked brain activity in the exact region in which that phonological processing occurs, an area called the left temporo-parietal cortex.
In all, they evaluated 20 children, aged 8 to 12, with dyslexia and 12 children in the same age range without the disorder. The children with dyslexia participated in an eight-week reading remediation program. All children received functional MRI scans before and after the eight-week study.
The MRI scans taken after the remediation program showed that the left temporo-parietal cortices of the dyslexic children were nearly as active as that area in the children without dyslexia.
The scans also found increased activity in the dyslexic children in the right-brain area that is a mirror image of the left temporo-parietal area. The researchers think this might be a compensatory mechanism, perhaps temporary, to make up for the decreased activity in the left brain of the dyslexic children.
"Their improvement in reading got them to the normal [reading] ranges," Temple says, although some were "still a little bit on the low end of normal."<.>
The program used for the study was the Fast ForWord program. Three of the study's co-authors are co-founders of the company producing the program, but Temple has no affiliation with the company.
"There are hundreds of programs," Temple says. "What this study does not tell us is how the brain would respond to other training programs."
She hopes to study other training programs soon.
Until more is known, Temple says parents of children with dyslexia should be heartened by the news that it is possible to change the brain activity. And parents should be certain their child's school uses a program that focuses on improving phonological processing.
The executive director of The International Dyslexia Association is guardedly optimistic about the study.
"There are some very exciting things in this article," says J. Thomas Viall. Studies such as these, he says, help counter conventional thinking that "the brain architecture you are born with you die with."
However, Viall also calls for more research. "I don't think we have enough [information] to say these [brain activity] changes are permanent."
More information
For some frequently asked questions about dyslexia, see The International Dyslexia Association. The association also has more on research into dyslexia.
