Differences in Brain Function and Changes with Intervention in Children with Poor Spelling and Reading Abilities

Abstract

Previous fMRI studies in English-speaking samples suggested that specific interventions may alter brain function in language-relevant networks in children with reading and spelling difficulties, but this research strongly focused on reading impaired individuals. Only few studies so far investigated characteristics of brain activation associated with poor spelling ability and whether a specific spelling intervention may also be associated with distinct changes in brain activity patterns. We here investigated such effects of a morpheme-based spelling intervention on brain function in 20 children with comparatively poor spelling and reading abilities using repeated fMRI. Relative to 10 matched controls, children with comparatively poor spelling and reading abilities showed increased activation in frontal medial and right hemispheric regions and decreased activation in left occipito-temporal regions prior to the intervention, during processing of a lexical decision task. After five weeks of intervention, spelling and reading comprehension significantly improved in the training group, along with increased activation in the left temporal, parahippocampal and hippocampal regions. Conversely, the waiting group showed increases in right posterior regions. Our findings could indicate an increased left temporal activation associated with the recollection of the new learnt morpheme-based strategy related to successful training.

Neuroimaging of Reading Intervention: A Systematic Review and Activation Likelihood Estimate Meta-Analysis

“…Prior to treatment, L posterior cingulate activation was negatively correlated in whole-brain multivariate patterns predicting responsiveness to intervention [108]. At post-intervention, poor spellers/readers showed increased activation in R posterior cingulate cortex when compared with a no-treatment group [101]. At treatment follow-up, children with RD showed greater activation than controls in R posterior cingulate [69].…”

A compensatory role for declarative memory in neurodevelopmental disorders

“…At least three fMRI studies of children or adults with dyslexia have found that various interventions can lead to both improved reading and increased activation in the hippocampus and other MTL structures (as well as other brain regions) in phonological processing and pseudoword reading tasks, suggesting an increased dependence on these structures (Eden et al, 2004; Gebauer et al, 2012; Temple et al, 2003). It has been argued that this pattern may be due to compensation by hippocampal-based memory (Temple et al, 2003) – though for this and other findings, it is important to keep in mind that inference of function from a given activation pattern is often uncertain (for a discussion of the issue of inference in neuroimaging studies, see Poldrack, 2006).…”

“…Functional and structural MRI evidence: Behavioral interventions lead to increased hippocampal activation and volumes (Eden et al, 2004; Gebauer et al, 2012; Krafnick et al, 2011; Temple et al, 2003)…”

All Wrapped Up: Environmental Effects on Myelination

“…Dynamic and influential learning involving WM occurs throughout life, but is especially critical during development, as organisms establish the infrastructure and patterns of circuitry in the brain. Spelling impairment is associated with DTI differences in WM integrity [104], and five weeks of remediation improved spelling and reading comprehension versus controls [105]. This increase in WM FA in language relevant networks highlights the importance of WM plasticity in cognitive learning.…”