Advances in neurobiological research have created new opportunities for understanding and exploring dyslexia. The purpose of this article is to (a) provide a straightforward, although not overly simplified, overview of neurological research on dyslexia and (b) make connections between neurological research and classroom interventions for students…

Oral reading is a complex skill involving the interaction of orthographic, phonological, and semantic processes. Functional imaging studies with nonimpaired adult readers have identified a widely distributed network of frontal, inferior parietal, posterior temporal, and occipital brain regions involved in the task. However, while functional…

Diffusion tensor imaging tractography is a structural magnetic resonance imaging technique allowing reconstruction and assessment of the integrity of three dimensional white matter tracts, as indexed by their fractional anisotropy. It is assumed that the left arcuate fasciculus plays a crucial role for reading development, as it connects two…

Within linguistics, words with a complex internal structure are commonly assumed to be decomposed into their constituent morphemes (e.g., un-help-ful). Nevertheless, an ongoing debate concerns the brain structures that subserve this process. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the present study varied the internal complexity of derived…

Learning to read is a complex process that requires multiple areas of the brain to operate together through intricate networks of neurons. The author of this article, a neurologist and middle school teacher, takes exception to interpretations of neuroimaging research that treat reading as an isolated, independent cognitive process. She…

Electroencephalographic power spectra were studied in two poor-reading adolescent groups (n=38), dysphonetic and phonetic. Significant Group x Hemisphere effects were found in the alpha and beta bands, with the phonetic group showing right greater than left asymmetry. Results suggest more circumscribed and mature processing in the phonetically…

This paper examines the influence of Norman Geschwind's model of connectionism, in which complex functions are built up by connecting primary areas in the brain, and notes his studies of the effects of disconnection on dyslexic individuals. Connectionist-based behavioral studies are reviewed, focusing on intracortical association connections and…

This article proposes a neurobiological account of reading and reading disability suggesting that for normally developing readers, the dorsal (tempo-parietal) circuit predominates at first, and in conjunction with premotor systems, is associated with analytic processing necessary for learning to integrate orthographic with phonological and…

This study investigated the premise that disordered temporal order perception in retarded readers can be seen in the serial processing of both nonverbal auditory and visual information, and examined whether such information processing deficits relate to level of reading ability. The adult subjects included 20 in the dyslexic group, 12 in the…