Early Detection of Dyslexia Risks

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Dyslexia is a reading impairment characterized by difficulty learning and interpreting words and letters. A recent study has found a relationship between children’s ability to read and children’s ability to hear. A pseudo-word was read to forty children in second and fifth grade where they were asked to verbally repeat it. These children had a better understanding of this word when it preceded phrases consisted of only rhythms and intonations and no phonemes. Those who required the most assistance from the phrases in order to repeat the word were also the ones who scored poorly on reading skill tests. This means that children who are not able to take in low frequency sounds such as tones, accents, and intonations of speech, will struggle more with decoding phonemes and words in a timely and correct manner. This correlates with a child’s reading capacity as well as other learning disabilities.

In this course, we briefly discussed the function of the Angular Gyrus which is to connect visual areas with auditory and visual association areas. Dysfunction to the Angular Gyrus could cause impairments like Dyslexia. As of now, Dyslexia cannot be diagnosed until the age of nine. With this finding, the researchers of this study hope to establish early testing for the diagnosis of Dyslexia. This finding is also relevant for educational and developmental psychologists. Both of these fields are related to child development and/or learning disorders. These researchers are seeking to understand, prevent, or treat these learning disorders. If researchers are able to develop an early diagnosis for Dyslexia, there can be implementations of prevention programs.

http://neurosciencenews.com/early-dyslexia-reading-7843/


Comments

  1. Lady SNovember 16, 2017 at 5:48 PM

    Imagine if we were able to detect dyslexia early in life, we could help teach reading to more children or at least teach them ways to over the obstacle of reading. If we can overcome dyslexia, we can raise the rates of literacy and have more children enjoy reading.

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  2. UnknownNovember 16, 2017 at 6:42 PM

    I found the test that they used to be very interesting. I do not understand how asking a child to repeat a pseudo word will help determine if they have dyslexia over a different reading/writing disorder. However, the test itself, is a lot more difficult than someone might think it is. We learned in class how the process of answering a spoken question, for example, is very complicated and involves multiple regions of the brain. First, when the child hears the word, it goes to their auditory cortex. Then, it goes to the wernicke's area and then the broca's area. Finally, it goes to the motor cortex so the child can repeat the word. If the child is unable to repeat the word, it might be hard to tell what specific region of the brain is not functioning properly. This might lead to over diagnosis of dyslexia. There needs to be more accurate tests because detecting it early is important for the child's learning.

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  3. UnknownNovember 16, 2017 at 7:57 PM

    Hi Joey,

    This is article was such an interesting read. I can see how children might suffer from dyslexia. Another article i read explained that when we read a sentence or word our brain translates the words into sounds and that is how we are able to identify letters. Therefore i can see how they had a hard time recognizing the pseudo- word.

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  4. UnknownNovember 16, 2017 at 9:29 PM

    Hi Joey!

    I found this article really surprising as I work with a child who we suspect has some extent of dyslexia and I was never sure why his doctors wouldn't diagnose it but reading this I did not realize you had to be nine to receive the diagnosis which makes his case more clear as he is only 7!

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