Verbal--spatial discrepancies are common in healthy individuals and in those with neurodevelopmental disorders associated with cognitive control deficits including: Autism Spectrum Disorder, Non-Verbal Learning Disability, Fragile X, 22q11 deletion, and Turner Syndrome. Previous data from healthy individuals suggest that the magnitude of the…

Developmental dyscalculia (DD) is marked by specific deficits in processing numerical and mathematical information despite normal intelligence (IQ) and reading ability. We examined how brain circuits used by young children with DD to solve simple addition and subtraction problems differ from those used by typically developing (TD) children who…

Mathematical skills are becoming increasingly critical for achieving academic and professional success. Developmental dyscalculia (DD) is a childhood-onset disorder characterized by the presence of abnormalities in the acquisition of arithmetic skills affecting approximately 5% of school age children. Diagnosing students with possible dyscalculia…

We report a patient showing isolated phonological agraphia after an ischemic stroke involving the left supramarginal gyrus (SMG). In this patient, we investigated the effects of focal repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) given as theta burst stimulation (TBS) over the left SMG, corresponding to the Brodmann area (BA) 40. The patient…

A nonverbal learning disability is believed to be caused by damage, disorder or destruction of neuronal white matter in the brain's right hemisphere and may be seen in persons experiencing a wide range of neurological diseases such as hydrocephalus and other types of brain injury (Harnadek & Rourke 1994). This article probes the relationship…

Apraxic agraphia is a writing disorder due to a loss or lack of access to motor engrams that program the movements necessary to produce letters. Clinical and functional neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that the neural network responsible for writing includes the superior parietal region and the dorsolateral and medial premotor cortex. Recent…

Dichotic listening (DL) techniques have been used extensively as a non-invasive procedure to assess language lateralization among children with and without learning disabilities (LD), and with individuals who have other auditory system related brain disorders. Results of studies using DL have indicated that language is lateralized in children with…

Learning disabilities (LD) are one of the most frequent problems for elementary school-aged children. In this paper, event-related EEG oscillations to semantically related and unrelated pairs of words were studied in a group of 18 children with LD not otherwise specified (LD-NOS) and in 16 children with normal academic achievement. We propose that…

Reinforcement learning theory has been extensively used to understand the neural underpinnings of instrumental behaviour. A central assumption surrounds dopamine signalling reward prediction errors, so as to update action values and ensure better choices in the future. However, educators may share the intuitive idea that reinforcements not only…

Various studies support an association between white matter hyperintensities (WMH) and deficits in executive function in nondemented ageing. Studies examining executive functions and WMH have generally adopted executive function as a phrase including various functions such as flexibility, inhibition, and working memory. However, these functions…

We describe the case of a child ("S") who was treated with radiation therapy at age 5 for a recurrent malignant brain tumor. Radiation successfully abolished the tumor but caused radiation-induced tissue necrosis, primarily affecting cerebral white matter. "S" was introduced to us at age 15 because of her profound dyslexia. We assessed cognitive…

Neurofibromatosis, type 1 (NF-1) is a common genetic disorder affecting 1 in 3,500-4,000 individuals in the world. Mutations of the NF-1 gene produce a myriad of physical, medical, and psychological manifestations. Although there is a very high degree of variability in the manifestations between individuals with NF-1, the majority of children and…

Velocardiofacial syndrome (VCFS), also known as 22q11.2 deletion syndrome, is a neurogenetic disorder that is associated with both learning disabilities and a consistent neuropsychological phenotype, including deficits in executive function, visuospatial perception, and working memory. Anatomic imaging studies have identified significant…

Sophisticated neurological research shows that early problems with auditory perception can result in long-range negative effects for the linguistic processes in general, and such long-range effects must be assumed to be correlated with induced degenerative changes in the auditory system and perhaps in the brain's linguistic sector. This research…

Investigation of the language-spatial lateralization of 76 intermediate grade right-handed regular education students found that "good" students had normal left hemisphere language and right hemisphere spatial lateralization but "poor" students had nonnormal lateralization. Academic problems and behavior problems were correlated with nonnormal…