disruption in the organizational process when reading

Functional disruption in the organization of the brain for reading in dyslexia

1. Sally E. Shaywitz*†,
2. Bennett A. Shaywitz*‡,
3. Kenneth R. Pugh*§,
4. Robert K. Fulbright¶,
5. R. Todd Constable¶,
6. W. Einar Mencl*§,
7. Donald P. Shankweiler§,
8. Alvin M. Liberman§,
9. Pawel Skudlarski¶,
10. Jack M. Fletcher‖,
11. Leonard Katz§,
12. Karen E. Marchione*,
13. Cheryl Lacadie¶,
14. Christopher Gatenby¶, and
15. John C. Gore¶**

+ Author Affiliations

1. ^*Department of Pediatrics, ^‡Department of Neurology, ^§Haskins Laboratories, ^¶Department of Diagnostic Radiology, ^**Department of Applied Physics, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06520; and ^‖Department of Pediatrics, University of Texas Medical School, Houston, TX 77030

1. Contributed by Alvin M. Liberman

Abstract

Learning to read requires an awareness that spoken words can be decomposed into the phonologic constituents that the alphabetic characters represent. Such phonologic awareness is characteristically lacking in dyslexic readers who, therefore, have difficulty mapping the alphabetic characters onto the spoken word. To find the location and extent of the functional disruption in neural systems that underlies this impairment, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare brain activation patterns in dyslexic and nonimpaired subjects as they performed tasks that made progressively greater demands on phonologic analysis. Brain activation patterns differed significantly between the groups with dyslexic readers showing relative underactivation in posterior regions (Wernicke’s area, the angular gyrus, and striate cortex) and relative overactivation in an anterior region (inferior frontal gyrus). These results support a conclusion that the impairment in dyslexia is phonologic in nature and that these brain activation patterns may provide a neural signature for this impairment.

**MY OPINION OF THE STUDY is that this is a very understandable way for people who do not have a psychology background to understand in layman's terms that individuals with dyslexia have difficulty reading because they have disruption in the organizational process in the brain when reading. This means that when an individu al with a "normal" human brain has the ability to read and be able to organize the events in the reading in order and with ease. However, for an individual with dyslexia, in my opinion, I feel as if the problem begins when the scenes and events in the story become difficult to remember because they are difficult to organize and put on a timeline.