Myomancy ADHD, Dyslexia and Autism

Functioning Magnetic Resonance Imaging is the technology that allows researchers to see inside the brain as it works. Images like this one are typical of fMRI where bright colours show where there is the most activity in the brain. Not surprisingly this technology is a huge boast to our understanding of how the brain works.
This interest in fMRI is inspired by a discussion on Being Dyslexic about whether dyslexia can be ‘cured’ or if dyslexics can only learn to cope or mask their symptoms. So if a dyslexic learns to read at an rate appropriate for their age; are they reading the same way as a normal child does or have they developed a coping strategy that allows them to read but doesn’t address the fundamental problems?
To answer this questions I’ve taken a trawl through Google Schoolar looking for studies that involve fMRI, dyslexia and reading.
The first question that we need to be answer is: Do Dyslexics Read Differently from Non-dyslexics? This study, Disrupted neural responses to phonological and orthographic processing in dyslexic children: an fMRI study :
“During letter rhyming, both normal and dyslexic reading children had activity in left frontal brain regions, whereas only normal-reading children had activity in left temporo-parietal cortex. During letter matching, normal-reading children showed activity throughout extrastriate cortex, especially in occipito-parietal regions, whereas dyslexic children had little activity in extrastriate cortex during this task“.
This finding supports an earlier study :fMRI During Word Processing in Dyslexic and Normal Reading Children:
“Comparison of patterns of activation in dyslexic and normal reading children revealed significant differences in Broca’s area and the left inferior temporal region for both, non-word reading and the phonological transformation task“.
This difference in reading is not limited to English speaking children. A german study, Phonological Processing in Dyslexic Children [ PDF ]:
“The fMRI showed a significant difference in the activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus between the dyslexic and control groups, resulting from a hyperactivation in the dyslexics“.
So the evidence is clear that yes, dyslexic’s do think differently when reading. This is important because it marks a clear, measurable difference between dyslexics and non-dyslexics.
The next question is does training dyslexics change their brains to match non-dyslexics? Or are dyslexics brains hard-wired so that they can only add coping strategies and not change the underlying problem. If this is the case then we should be able to identify three different neurological patterns: the normal reader, the dyslexic reader and the coping-dyslexic reader. This would mean that dyslexic cannot be cured. If on the other hand a dyslexic’s brain can be changed to be the same as non-dyslexic that would show a dyslexic brain can become identical to a non-dyslexic brain and thus a cure is possible.
The first study I found that tested dyslexics before and after treatment was Reading Treatment Helps Children with Dyslexia and Changes Activity in Language Areas of the Brain. In this paper ten children with dyslexia were tested before and after an intensive reading treatment for two hours a day for fourteen days. There findings were:
“The findings from this study suggest that reading treatment in children with dyslexia can be successful. When it is successful, the pattern of brain activity becomes similar to the activity pattern of normal readers of the same age“.
So the training did effect the way the brain thinks when reading and it made the brain in the dyslexics similar to the non-dyslexics. The word similar is very important. With more training would the dyslexics become identical to the non-dyslexics or does this similar brain pattern really represent the mental activity of the coping-dyslexic? This study might answer the question. Dyslexia-Specific Brain Activation Profile Becomes Normal Following Successful Remedial Training. The clue to the results of this study are in its title. A big difference between this study and the previous one is the amount of training the children. In this case the eight children received eighty hours of training over a two month period. This is two and a half times more training spread over four times as long. Their results:
“These findings suggest that the deficit in functional brain organization underlying dyslexia can be reversed after sufficiently intense intervention lasting as little as 2 months“.
This makes a strong case for dyslexia being curable given enough training.
However a third study partially supports the coping strategy argument. In study on FastForward for Language that Myomancy has already covered they found that “Some of the changes brought the brain function of children with dyslexia closer to that seen in normal-reading children, whereas other changes seemed to be compensatory in nature“. Meaning that part of the dyslexic’s brains became more like non-dyslexics but other areas changed in a way that is different from non-dyslexics.
Further evidence comes from Development of Left Occipitotemporal Systems for Skilled Reading in Children after a Phonologically- Based Intervention, a study conducted last year at the University of Harvard, USA. This is a noteworthy study because it looked at the effects of a year long intervention programme. It found that:
“The post-intervention results for [the control and experimental group] looked very similar after one year“.
So what is the conclusion? All the studies showed that training can change a dyslexic brain to be very similar to a non-dyslexic brain. The studies suggest that the longer and more intensive the training is, the closer to normal the dyslexic brain becomes. One study out of the four showed that after training a dyslexic’s brain may be different from an untrained dyslexic and a normal brain which supports the coping-dyslexic hypothesis. It is worth noting that this was the only study that used a computer based training program for the treatment. It may be that human based interventions have a different effect than computer based interventions. One thing that is clear from these studies is that the symptoms of dyslexics can be significantly reduced and brain functions brought closer to the norm through intensive training. Whether this represents a cure or just improved coping strategies only more research will tell.

NOTE: fMRI is a complicated process and relies heavily on statistics to analyse the results. Not all statistics are valid statistics. Also, all the studies were conducted using different techniques to test reading ability and to treat the dyslexics. Comparing results between them may not be scientifically valid. Lastly, the studies also only focused on reading ability where as dyslexia covers a variety of problems including poor memory, poor coordination, hearing problems and visual difficulties.