Neuron Learning

Dyslexia defined: ‘Uncoupling’ between IQ and reading

Being dyslexic does not mean you are stupid

Sally Shaywitz confirms this in her research.

The researchers found that in typical readers, IQ and reading not only track together, but also influence each other over time. But in children with dyslexia, IQ and reading are not linked over time and do not influence one another. This explains why a dyslexic can be both bright and not read well.
So do I need to say more?


Dyslexia defined: ‘Uncoupling’ between IQ and reading.

mOre dysLeXia conTroVersY

Maybe all dyslexics are poor readers. bUt aRe aLl pOOr rEAadErs dYSlexIc?

MPs believe that the definition of dyslexia is too broad.

A few important questions

What are the reasons that the individual cannot read?
How can we help he or she ovecome the issues?

The point is with proper identification of the issues and the right intervention most people can read effectively. The research is there to show this.

So whether its the dyslexia association or the local education authority lets put all the educational advances we have made into action.






MPs: focus on dyslexia 'obscuring' reading problems - Telegraph.

First evidence of brain rewiring in children: Reading remediation positively alters brain tissue

there is lts of evidence to show that effective interventions shows brain changes for poor readers. This is is from Canegie-Mellon University and published in Neuron maagazine

First evidence of brain rewiring in children: Reading remediation positively alters brain tissue.

"First evidence that intensive instruction to improve reading skills in young children causes the brain to physically rewire itself, creating new white matter that improves communication within the brain......

Learn To Read Through Sound -- Cognitive Neuroscientists Use Sound Training To Help Dyslexic Children Read

Great story and a video well worth watching.

Researchers believe the problem could ... be with how the brain "hears" sounds. "We believe that these children -- from being toddlers or even earlier as infants -- have problems with processing these changes in sounds," Nadine Gaab, Ph.D., an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Children's Hospital in Boston, Mass.USA

Researchers agree that dyslexics have problems manipulating words and sounds – that the primary problem is processing the sounds that make up words.

Dr. Gaab is using "sound training" through computer exercises ( Fast ForWord) to monitor how dyslexics process fast and slow-changing sounds. While children play the game, Dr. Gaab monitors their brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). But after eight weeks of intensive training, a dyslexic child's fMRI image shows more activity. "The brain is very plastic and so the brain learns and reconnected and built a new network," Dr. Gaab explained.

Learn To Read Through Sound -- Cognitive Neuroscientists Use Sound Training To Help Dyslexic Children Read.

Behavioral Training Improves Connectivity and Function in the Brain, Wednesday, December 9, 2009 News Release - National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Children with poor reading skills who underwent an intensive, six-month training program to improve their reading ability showed increased connectivity in a particular brain region, in addition to making significant gains in reading.

This confirms previous studies in Stanford with children with dyslexia who have had the same beneficial impact using Fast ForWord Click here

See the full article here
Behavioral Training Improves Connectivity and Function in the Brain, Wednesday, December 9, 2009 News Release - National Institutes of Health (NIH).

APD, Temporal Processing, and Dyslexia

Current APD assessment and identification methods appear to have “serious shortcomings for several reasons according to a study by a group of noted specialists.

There is a core of fundamental auditory skills such as temporal processing, auditory figure-ground discrimination, and auditory memory or attention

They go on to say:

1. APD is a multifactorial description of learning problems, that is there may be a co-existence of issues
2. Auditory impairments co-occur with literacy problems, although they may not be directly related.
3. Categorising issues APD or dyslexia may be the wrong approach as it focuses attention on one issue, while there may be multiple issues that would benefit from attentio

We see this as our students progress through the exercises in Fast ForWord. Language, learning and reading skills depend on an essential group of cognitive skills including attention, memory, processing speed, and sequencing. Often auditory sequential memory is improved as language discrimination improves.Often APD is confused with ADD/ADHD. Improve auditory processing and attention also improves.  So a multiplier approach is essential. A focus on one skill alone rarely works.

The article on Auditory Processing is here
APD, Temporal Processing, and Dyslexia.

For More Information, References, and Recommendations

Dawes P, Sirimanna T, Burton M, Vanniasegaram I, Tweedy F, Bishop DVM. (2009) Temporal Auditory and Visual Motion Processing of Children Diagnosed with Auditory Processing Disorder and Dyslexia. Ear & Hearing 30(6):675–686.

Learning Styles; A change for the better.

The Learning Myth......Interesting points made by my friends in Gemm Learning (www.gemmlearning.com) worth quoting in full

"The myth, and sadly, current conventional thinking is that learning ability is formed in the first three years of life and/or from genetics. After that the role of educators and parents is to “work around” learning issues, to provide coping tools.

If you are told your child is a visual learner and that you need to provide visual cues to help “that kind of learner” you are basically being told that your child is a visual learner and that’s that. It’s done.

But think about it. What a devastating diagnosis. Reading requires spoken language dexterity (to at first decode, then to understand language structures and vocabulary) AND for the first ten plus years of life the vast, vast majority of learning is oral –listening to the world around you as a baby, being taught by your parents and then educators. No right thinking, self-organizing brain would choose to be a “visual” learner if it had an alernative to be able to absorb spoken language as well.

But for the Learning Is Fixed mindset, being a Visual Learner sounds OK and nothing for parents to worrry about since nothing can be done (they say) anyway. And at least the child is some kind of learner, right?"

As it happens research on brain plasticity demonstrates clearly that people with dyslexia (for example) can change their brain functioning for the better. You are not stuck in a rut.