Impairment In Dyslexia Research Articles

The Less Things Change, the More They Remain the Same: Impaired Neural Plasticity as a Critical Target for Drug Development in Neuropsychiatry.

Neuropsychiatric disability is related to reduced ability to change in response to clinical interventions, e.g., plasticity. Study of biomarkers and interventional strategies for plasticity, however, are sparse. In this chapter, we focus on the serial frequency discrimination task (SFDT), which is sensitive to impairments in early auditory processing (EAP) and auditory learning and has been most thoroughly studied in dyslexia and schizophrenia. In the SFDT, participants are presented with repeated paired tones ("reference" and "test") and indicate which tone is higher in pitch. Plasticity during the SFDT is critically dependent upon interactions between prefrontal "cognitive control" regions, and lower-level perceptual and motor regions that may be detected using both fMRI and time-frequency event-related potential (TF-ERP) approaches. Additionally, interactions between the cortex and striatum give insights into glutamate/dopamine interaction mechanisms. The SFDT task has been utilized in the development of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) targeted medications, which significantly modulate sensory and premotor neurophysiological activity. Deficits in pitch processing play a critical role in impaired neuro- and social cognitive function in schizophrenia and may contribute to similar impairments in dyslexia. Thus, the SFDT may be ideal for development of treatments aimed at amelioration of neuro- and social cognitive deficits across neuropsychiatric disorders.

An Overview on Electrophysiological and Neuroimaging Findings in Dyslexia.

Objective: Dyslexia is a prevalent neurodevelopmental condition that is characterized by inaccurate and slow word recognition. This article reviews neural correlates of dyslexia from both electrophysiological and neuroimaging studies. Method : In this brief review, we provide electrophysiological and neuroimaging evidence from electroencephalogram (EEG) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies in dyslexia to understand functional and structural brain changes in this condition. Results: In both electrophysiological and neuroimaging studies, the most frequently reported functional impairments in dyslexia include aberrant activation of the left hemisphere occipito-temporal cortex (OTC), temporo-parietal cortex (TPC), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and cerebellar areas. EEG studies have mostly highlighted the important role of lower frequency bands in dyslexia, especially theta waves. Furthermore, neuroimaging studies have suggested that dyslexia is related to functional and structural impairments in the left hemisphere regions associated with reading and language, including reduced grey matter volume in the left TPC, decreased white matter connectivity between reading networks, and hypo-activation of the left OTC and TPC. In addition, neural evidence from pre-reading children and infants at risk for dyslexia show that there are abnormalities in the dyslexic brain before learning to read begins. Conclusion: Advances in comprehending the neural correlates of dyslexia could bring closer translation from basic to clinical neuroscience and effective rehabilitation for individuals who struggle to read. However, neuroscience still has great potential for clinical translation that requires further research.

Heterogeneity of short-term memory deficits in children with dyslexia.

Many studies have highlighted short-term memory (STM) impairment in dyslexic individuals. Several studies showed deficits for both item and serial order aspects of verbal STM in dyslexic individuals. These group-based studies, however, do not inform us about the prevalence of these deficits and, importantly, their potential heterogeneity at the individual level. The present study examined both group-level and individual STM profiles in dyslexic and age-matched non-dyslexic children. While confirming previous group-based results of both item and serial order STM deficits, individual analyses indicated two distinct profiles: one profile was associated with verbal item STM and phonological impairment while another profile showed selective serial STM deficits in both verbal and visual domains. Our results highlight the need for practitioners to consider the heterogeneous nature of STM impairment in dyslexia and to adapt STM and reading treatment strategies accordingly.

Evidence of Altered Functional Connectivity at Rest in the Writing Network of Children with Dyslexia

Aim. Handwriting abilities in children with dyslexia (DYS) are not well documented in the current literature, and the presence of graphomotor impairment in addition to spelling impairment in dyslexia is controversial. Using resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC), the present study aims to answer the following question: are there markers of graphomotor impairment at rest in DYS children? Method. The participants were children with DYS and typically developing (TD) children (n = 32) from French-speaking primary schools (Mage = 9.3 years). The behavioural evaluation consisted of spelling and handwriting measures. Participants underwent a resting-state fMRI scan. Results. Analyses of RSFC focused on a brain region responsible for graphomotor processes—the graphemic/motor frontal area (GMFA). The RSFC between the GMFA and all other voxels of the brain was measured. Whole-brain ANOVAs were run to compare RSFC in DYS and TD children. The results demonstrated reduced RSFC in DYS compared to TD between the GMFA and brain areas involved in both spelling processes and motor-related processes. Conclusions. For the first time, this study highlighted a disruption of the writing network in DYS. By identifying functional markers of both spelling and handwriting deficits at rest in young DYS participants, this study supports the presence of graphomotor impairment in dyslexia.

Words as Visual Objects: Neural and Behavioral Evidence for High-Level Visual Impairments in Dyslexia.

Developmental dyslexia is defined by reading impairments that are disproportionate to intelligence, motivation, and the educational opportunities considered necessary for reading. Its cause has traditionally been considered to be a phonological deficit, where people have difficulties with differentiating the sounds of spoken language. However, reading is a multidimensional skill and relies on various cognitive abilities. These may include high-level vision—the processes that support visual recognition despite innumerable image variations, such as in viewpoint, position, or size. According to our high-level visual dysfunction hypothesis, reading problems of some people with dyslexia can be a salient manifestation of a more general deficit of high-level vision. This paper provides a perspective on how such non-phonological impairments could, in some cases, cause dyslexia. To argue in favor of this hypothesis, we will discuss work on functional neuroimaging, structural imaging, electrophysiology, and behavior that provides evidence for a link between high-level visual impairment and dyslexia.

Dyslexia-related impairments in sequence learning predict linguistic abilities

Dyslexia is often characterized by disordered word recognition and spelling, though dysfunction on various non-linguistic tasks suggests a more pervasive deficit may underlie reading and spelling abilities. The serial-order learning impairment in dyslexia (SOLID) hypothesis proposes that sequence learning impairments fundamentally disrupt cognitive abilities, including linguistic processes, among individuals with dyslexia; yet only some studies report sequence learning deficits in people with dyslexia relative to controls. Evidence may be mixed because traditional sequence learning tasks often require strong motor demands, working memory processes and/or executive functions, wherein people with dyslexia can show impairments. Thus, observed sequence learning deficits in dyslexia may only appear to the extent that comorbid motor-based processes, memory capacity, or executive processes are involved. The present study measured sequence learning in college-aged students with and without dyslexia using a single task that evaluates sequencing and non-sequencing components but without strong motor, executive, or memory demands. During sequencing, each additional link in a sequence of stimuli leading to a reward is trained step-by-step, until a complete sequence is acquired. People with dyslexia made significantly more sequencing errors than controls, despite equivalent performance on non-sequencing components. Mediation analyses further revealed that sequence learning accounted for a large portion of the variance between dyslexia status and linguistic abilities, particularly pseudo-word reading. These findings extend the SOLID hypothesis by showing difficulties in the ability to acquire sequences that may play an underlying role in literacy acquisition.

Impairment of some cognitive process in children with reading disability in middle childhood, late childhood, and early adolescence

BackgroundThe impairment of cognitive processes in dyslexia is well established, and according to recent studies, this deficit extends to many aspects of cognitive processes. However, these studies have not focused on Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive processes. Further research is needed concerning cognitive impairment in dyslexia, especially with Arabic-speaking population.ResultsChildren with reading disability scored significantly lower in the total and all subscales of Cognitive Assessment System (CAS), Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive (P = 0.000). The children with reading disability obtained worse scores compared with the controls in almost all the subtests of CAS.ConclusionThe present study highlighted that children with reading disability have difficulties in cognitive processes across the three age groups compared to normal children, which may help in the development of treatment plans and programs for this problem.

Oculomotor and Inhibitory Control in Dyslexia.

Previous research has suggested that people with dyslexia may have an impairment of inhibitory control. The oculomotor system is vulnerable to interference at various levels of the system, from high level cognitive control to peripheral neural pathways. Therefore, in this work we examined two forms of oculomotor inhibition and two forms of oculomotor interference at high and low levels of the control system. This study employed a prosaccade, antisaccade, and a recent distractor eye movement task (akin to a spatial negative priming) in order to explore high level cognitive control and the inhibition of a competing distractor. To explore low-level control we examined the frequency of microsaccades and post-saccade oscillations. The findings demonstrated that dyslexics have an impairment of volitional inhibitory control, reflected in the antisaccade task. In contrast, inhibitory control at the location of a competing distractor was equivalent in the dyslexic and non-dyslexic groups. There was no difference in the frequency of microsaccades between the two groups. However, the dyslexic group generated larger microsaccades prior to the target onset in the prosaccade and the antisaccade tasks.The groups did not differ in the frequency or in the morphology of the post-saccade oscillations. These findings reveal that the word reading and attentional difficulties of dyslexic readers cannot be attributed to an impairment in the inhibition of a visual distractor or interference from low-level oculomotor instability. We propose that the inhibitory impairment in dyslexia occurs at a higher cognitive level, perhaps in relation to the process of attentional disengagement.

Visual artificial grammar learning in dyslexia: A meta-analysis

BackgroundLiteracy impairments in dyslexia have been hypothesized to be (partly) due to an implicit learning deficit. However, studies of implicit visual artificial grammar learning (AGL) have often yielded null results. AimsThe aim of this study is to weigh the evidence collected thus far by performing a meta-analysis of studies on implicit visual AGL in dyslexia. Methods and proceduresThirteen studies were selected through a systematic literature search, representing data from 255 participants with dyslexia and 292 control participants (mean age range: 8.5–36.8 years old). ResultsIf the 13 selected studies constitute a random sample, individuals with dyslexia perform worse on average than non-dyslexic individuals (average weighted effect size=0.46, 95% CI [0.14 … 0.77], p=0.008), with a larger effect in children than in adults (p=0.041; average weighted effect sizes 0.71 [sig.] versus 0.16 [non-sig.]). However, the presence of a publication bias indicates the existence of missing studies that may well null the effect. Conclusions and implicationsWhile the studies under investigation demonstrate that implicit visual AGL is impaired in dyslexia (more so in children than in adults, if in adults at all), the detected publication bias suggests that the effect might in fact be zero.

Dyslexia limits listener responsiveness to indexical cues in speech

Recent research has shown that the underlying phonological impairment in dyslexia (DYS) is associated with a deficit in recognizing indexical features in voices of multiple talkers, including talker dialect. This study further examined sensitivity (measured in A-prime) to indexical information using stimuli which varied the nature and the redundancy of acoustic cues. Twenty DYS adults, 20 DYS children and 40 corresponding controls from Ohio listened to three sets of stimuli: unaltered, low-pass filtered (LP) at 400 Hz (retaining voice information but little content), and eight-channel noise-vocoded speech (VS) (eliminating all harmonic information). Listeners identified talker dialect (Ohio, North Carolina) and sex. Compared with controls, performance of DYS listeners was significantly lower although the overall pattern was consistent for both groups: For the degraded stimuli, sensitivity to dialect was greater in VS than in LP, and sensitivity to talker sex was greater in LP than in VS. However, DYS listeners were disproportionally less sensitive to talker sex in VS. Overall, children performed significantly worse than did adults for all three stimulus types. The current results further revealed that individuals with dyslexia are deficient in utilizing indexical features, irrespective of the amount of the acoustic cues available in stimulus speech.

The event-based prospective memory of adults with developmental dyslexia under naturalistic conditions

Prospective memory (PM) is memory for delayed intentions. Broadly speaking, PM tasks require responses either to events in the environment (event-based PM; EBPM) or at a specific point in time (time-based PM; TBPM). Dyslexia-related deficits in TBPM have been reported under laboratory conditions but group differences in EBPM have yet to be found. However, self-reports suggest that people with dyslexia do experience day-to-day EBPM difficulties. To determine whether EBPM was affected by dyslexia when task demands were more closely related to the demands of everyday life, a task was presented to groups of adults with and without dyslexia, matched for age and short-form IQ. The participants were required to make a response outside the laboratory setting one week after the task had been set. The group with dyslexia were worse at remembering to perform the EBPM task one week later, despite reporting equivalent levels of motivation to perform it successfully. Fewer adults with dyslexia reported remembering the PM instruction at the time it was required. However, they did not differ from adults without dyslexia in the self-reported frequency with which they thought of the PM task over the intervening period. The results suggest that EBPM deficits can be found in dyslexia over longer delay intervals. Dyslexia-related problems with EBPM may relate to the reliable access to verbal information at the point at which it is required. These results are considered in the light of the current understanding of PM impairments in dyslexia.

Visual Perception and Reading: New Clues to Patterns of Dysfunction Across Multiple Visual Channels in Developmental Dyslexia.

The specificity of visual channel impairment in dyslexia has been the subject of much controversy. The purpose of this study was to determine if a differential pattern of impairment can be verified between visual channels in children with developmental dyslexia, and in particular, if the pattern of deficits is more conspicuous in tasks where the magnocellular-dorsal system recruitment prevails. Additionally, we also aimed at investigating the association between visual perception thresholds and reading. In the present case-control study, we compared perception thresholds of 33 children diagnosed with developmental dyslexia and 34 controls in a speed discrimination task, an achromatic contrast sensitivity task, and a chromatic contrast sensitivity task. Moreover, we addressed the correlation between the different perception thresholds and reading performance, as assessed by means of a standardized reading test (accuracy and fluency). Group comparisons were performed by the Mann-Whitney U test, and Spearman's rho was used as a measure of correlation. Results showed that, when compared to controls, children with dyslexia were more impaired in the speed discrimination task, followed by the achromatic contrast sensitivity task, with no impairment in the chromatic contrast sensitivity task. These results are also consistent with the magnocellular theory since the impairment profile of children with dyslexia in the visual threshold tasks reflected the amount of magnocellular-dorsal stream involvement. Moreover, both speed and achromatic thresholds were significantly correlated with reading performance, in terms of accuracy and fluency. Notably, chromatic contrast sensitivity thresholds did not correlate with any of the reading measures. Our evidence stands in favor of a differential visual channel deficit in children with developmental dyslexia and contributes to the debate on the pathophysiology of reading impairments.

A sequence learning impairment in dyslexia? It depends on the task

Language acquisition is argued to be dependent upon an individuals’ sensitivity to serial-order regularities in the environment (sequential learning), and impairments in reading and spelling in dyslexia have recently been attributed to a deficit in sequential learning. The present study examined the learning and consolidation of sequential knowledge in 30 adults with dyslexia and 29 typical adults matched on age and nonverbal ability using two tasks previously reported to be sensitive to a sequence learning deficit. Both groups showed evidence of sequential learning and consolidation on a serial response time (SRT) task (i.e., faster and more accurate responses to sequenced spatial locations than randomly ordered spatial locations during training that persisted one week later). Whilst typical adults showed evidence of sequential learning on a Hebb repetition task (i.e., more accurate serial recall of repetitive sequences of nonwords versus randomly ordered sequences), adults with dyslexia showed initial advantages for repetitive versus randomly ordered sequences in the first half of training trials, but this effect disappeared in the second half of trials. This Hebb repetition effect was positively correlated with spelling in the dyslexic group; however, there was no correlation between sequential learning on the two tasks, placing doubt over whether sequential learning in different modalities represents a single capacity. These data suggest that sequential learning difficulties in adults with dyslexia are not ubiquitous, and when present may be a consequence of task demands rather than sequence learning per se.

Dyslexia Limits the Ability to Categorize Talker Dialect.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the underlying phonological impairment in dyslexia is associated with a deficit in categorizing regional dialects. Twenty adults with dyslexia, 20 school-age children with dyslexia, and 40 corresponding control listeners with average reading ability listened to sentences produced by multiple talkers (both sexes) representing two dialects: Midland dialect in Ohio (same as listeners' dialect) and Southern dialect in Western North Carolina. Participants' responses were analyzed using signal detection theory. Listeners with dyslexia were less sensitive to talker dialect than listeners with average reading ability. Children were less sensitive to dialect than adults. Under stimulus uncertainty, listeners with average reading ability were biased toward Ohio dialect, whereas listeners with dyslexia were unbiased in their responses. Talker sex interacted with sensitivity and bias differently for listeners with dyslexia than for listeners with average reading ability. The correlations between dialect sensitivity and phonological memory scores were strongest for adults with dyslexia. The results imply that the phonological deficit in dyslexia arises from impaired access to intact phonological representations rather than from poorly specified representations. It can be presumed that the impeded access to implicit long-term memory representations for indexical (dialect) information is due to less efficient operations in working memory, including deficiencies in utilizing talker normalization processes.

Linking memory and language: Evidence for a serial-order learning impairment in dyslexia

The present study investigated long-term serial-order learning impairments, operationalized as reduced Hebb repetition learning (HRL), in people with dyslexia. In a first multi-session experiment, we investigated both the persistence of a serial-order learning impairment as well as the long-term retention of serial-order representations, both in a group of Dutch-speaking adults with developmental dyslexia and in a matched control group. In a second experiment, we relied on the assumption that HRL mimics naturalistic word-form acquisition and we investigated the lexicalization of novel word-forms acquired through HRL. First, our results demonstrate that adults with dyslexia are fundamentally impaired in the long-term acquisition of serial-order information. Second, dyslexic and control participants show comparable retention of the long-term serial-order representations in memory over a period of 1 month. Third, the data suggest weaker lexicalization of newly acquired word-forms in the dyslexic group. We discuss the integration of these findings into current theoretical views of dyslexia.

Functional correlates of the speech-in-noise perception impairment in dyslexia: An MRI study

Dyslexia is a language-based neurodevelopmental disorder. It is characterized as a persistent deficit in reading and spelling. These difficulties have been shown to result from an underlying impairment of the phonological component of language, possibly also affecting speech perception. Although there is little evidence for such a deficit under optimal, quiet listening conditions, speech perception difficulties in adults with dyslexia are often reported under more challenging conditions, such as when speech is masked by noise. Previous studies have shown that these difficulties are more pronounced when the background noise is speech and when little spatial information is available to facilitate differentiation between target and background sound sources. In this study, we investigated the neuroimaging correlates of speech-in-speech perception in typical readers and participants with dyslexia, focusing on the effects of different listening configurations. Fourteen adults with dyslexia and 14 matched typical readers performed a subjective intelligibility rating test with single words presented against concurrent speech during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning. Target words were always presented with a four-talker background in one of three listening configurations: Dichotic, Binaural or Monaural. The results showed that in the Monaural configuration, in which no spatial information was available and energetic masking was maximal, intelligibility was severely decreased in all participants, and this effect was particularly strong in participants with dyslexia. Functional imaging revealed that in this configuration, participants partially compensate for their poorer listening abilities by recruiting several areas in the cerebral networks engaged in speech perception. In the Binaural configuration, participants with dyslexia achieved the same performance level as typical readers, suggesting that they were able to use spatial information when available. This result was, however, associated with increased activation in the right superior temporal gyrus, suggesting the need to reallocate neural resources to overcome speech-in-speech difficulties. Taken together, these results provide further understanding of the speech-in-speech perception deficit observed in dyslexia.

Volumetric Analysis of Regional Variability in the Cerebellum of Children with Dyslexia

Cerebellar deficits and subsequent impairment in procedural learning may contribute to both motor difficulties and reading impairment in dyslexia. We used quantitative magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the role of regional variation in cerebellar anatomy in children with single-word decoding impairments (N = 23), children with impairment in fluency alone (N = 8), and typically developing children (N = 16). Children with decoding impairments (dyslexia) demonstrated no statistically significant differences in overall grey and white matter volumes or cerebellar asymmetry; however, reduced volume in the anterior lobe of the cerebellum relative to typically developing children was observed. These results implicate cerebellar involvement in dyslexia and establish an important foundation for future research on the connectivity of the cerebellum and cortical regions typically associated with reading impairment.

Experimental induction of reading difficulties in normal readers provides novel insights into the neurofunctional mechanisms of visual word recognition

Phonological and visual dysfunctions may result in reading deficits like those encountered in developmental dyslexia. Here, we use a novel approach to induce similar reading difficulties in normal readers in an event-related fMRI study, thus systematically investigating which brain regions relate to different pathways relating to orthographic-phonological (e.g. grapheme-to-phoneme conversion, GPC) vs. visual processing. Based upon a previous behavioural study (Tholen et al. 2011), the retrieval of phonemes from graphemes was manipulated by lowering the identifiability of letters in familiar vs. unfamiliar shapes. Visual word and letter processing was impeded by presenting the letters of a word in a moving, non-stationary manner. FMRI revealed that the visual condition activated cytoarchitectonically defined area hOC5 in the magnocellular pathway and area 7A in the right mesial parietal cortex. In contrast, the grapheme manipulation revealed different effects localised predominantly in bilateral inferior frontal gyrus (left cytoarchitectonic area 44; right area 45) and inferior parietal lobule (including areas PF/PFm), regions that have been demonstrated to show abnormal activation in dyslexic as compared to normal readers. This pattern of activation bears close resemblance to recent findings in dyslexic samples both behaviourally and with respect to the neurofunctional activation patterns. The novel paradigm may thus prove useful in future studies to understand reading problems related to distinct pathways, potentially providing a link also to the understanding of real reading impairments in dyslexia.

Both abrupt and ramped onset of contrast reversing phantom contours reveals a magnocellular impairment in dyslexia.

Both abrupt and ramped onset of contrast reversing phantom contours reveals a magnocellular impairment in dyslexia.

Electrophysiological Indices of Phonological Impairments in Dyslexia

A range of studies have shown difficulties in perceiving acoustic and phonetic information in dyslexia; however, much less is known about how such difficulties relate to the perception of individual words. The authors present data from event-related potentials (ERPs) examining the hypothesis that children with dyslexia have difficulties with processing phonemic information within spoken words compared to age-matched readers with typical development. The authors monitored ERPs to auditory words during a simple picture-word matching task. The key manipulation was the inclusion of both matching stimuli and three types of mismatches (cohort, CONE-comb; rhyme, CONE-bone; and unrelated, CONE-fox). Children with dyslexia showed atypical N400 ERP waveforms to both types of phonological mismatches, but not to phonologically unrelated mismatches, reflecting a relative insensitivity to phonological overlap among auditory words. The data suggest that children with dyslexia have impairments in integrating phonological information into word-level representations. The results suggest that speech perception difficulties in dyslexia might have consequences for processing auditory words.