Brain activity in struggling readers before intervention relates to future reading gains

Abstract

Neural markers for reading-related changes in in response to intervention may represent biomarkers that could inform intervention plans as a potential index of the malleability of the reading network in struggling readers. Particularly interesting is the role of activation outside the reading network, especially in executive control networks important for reading comprehension. However, it is unclear whether any intervention-related executive control changes in the brain are specific to reading tasks or reflect more domain general changes. Brain changes associated with reading gains over time were compared for a sentence comprehension task as well as for a nonlexical executive control task (a behavioral inhibition task) in upper-elementary struggling readers, and in grade-matched non-struggling readers. Functional MRI scans were conducted before and after 16 weeks of reading intervention. Participants were grouped as improvers and non-improvers based on the consistency and size of post-intervention gains across multiple post-test measures. Engagement of the right fusiform during the reading task, both before and after intervention, was related to gains from remediation. Additionally, pre-intervention activation in regions that are part of the default-mode network (precuneus) and the fronto-parietal network (right posterior middle temporal gyrus) separated improvers and non-improvers from non-struggling readers. None of these differences were observed during the non-lexical inhibitory control task, indicating that the

Error-signaling in the developing brain

“…For the Twin study sample, we analyzed data from one twin randomly selected from each twin pair, originally collected as part of the Texas Twin Project ( Engelhardt et al, 2019 ; Harden et al, 2013 ). For the Reading Study ( Nugiel et al, 2019 ; Roe et al, 2018 ), we lowered the performance criteria to allow for greater variability in performance and to have consistent criteria across the three studies used here. We also excluded any participants from the original Reading Study sample that had clinical diagnoses of dyslexia or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder; our Reading Study sample here included some participants who were labeled as struggling readers by scoring below a cutoff on school administered reading tests.…”

Association Between Resting-State Functional Connectivity and Reading in Two Writing Systems in Japanese Children With and Without Developmental Dyslexia

“…In addition, it is associated with visual orthographic and lexical-semantic processing (Kawabata Duncan et al, 2014 ; Thuy et al, 2004 ). A previous study has reported that enhanced right FG activity during a reading task is associated with reading gain in English-speaking children who struggle with reading (Nugiel et al, 2019 ). In addition, the left PrCG is involved in handwriting (Longcamp et al, 2019 ; Roux et al, 2009 ) and Japanese children learn to read and write Kanji by intensive handwriting repetition (Naka and Naoi, 1995 ).…”

Cognitive, Intervention, and Neuroimaging Perspectives on Executive Function in Children With Reading Disabilities

“…In contrast, a sentence reading task activated regions implicated in both reading and EF demand, and some EF‐related brain regions did correlate with reading ability (Roe et al., ). Activation of some of these regions also predicted a positive intervention response (Nugiel et al., ). As such, the findings are consistent with a recent study (Aboud, Barquero, & Cutting, ) that found that activation of both reading and cognitive control regions during a lexical decision task predicted intervention response in a group defined with poor decoding.…”