Friday December 5, 2008 7:30 am Lethbridge

Wolf, M. (2007). Proust and the Squid.

Part III: When the Brain Can't Learn to Read

Chapter 7. Dyslexia's Puzzle and the Brain's Design

• "Examining why some brains cannot acquire written language gives us new insights into how the brain works ... And vice versa: understanding the developing reading brain sheds new light on dyslexia." [p. 167]
  
  
• "In the process of examing both we are invited to take a broader view of intellectual evolution - to see that a cultural invention like reading is only one expression of the brain's phenomenal potential." [p. 167]

  I like this. Dyslexia is not being viewed as a weakness as much as a difference.

• "[the study of dyslexia] is an intrisically messy enterprise." [p. 167]
• "There are at least three sets of reasons: the complex requirements of the reading brain; the fact that so many disciplines have been involved in its study; and the perplexing juxtaposition of singular strengths and devastating weaknesses in individuals with dyslexia." [p. 167]

  Once again, complex situations should expect complex descriptions and complex effects.

• "... in terms of human evolution the brain was never meant to read ... in order to read, each brain must learn to make new circuits by connecting older regions originally designed and genetically programmed for other things, such as recognizing objects and retrieving their names." [p. 168]
  
  
• "To find the causes of dyslexia, we must look to older structures of the brain and their multiple levels of processes, structures, neurons, and genes, all of which have come together in rapid synchrony to form the reading circuit." [p. 168]
  
  
• "Across all written languages, reading development involves: a rearrangement of older structures to make new learning circuits; a capacity for specialization in working groups of neurons within these structures for representing information; and automaticity - the capacity of these neuronal groups and learning circuits to retrieve and connect this information at nearly automatic rates." [p. 170]
  
  
• This leads to 5 basic principles for understanding dyslexia:
  • a flaw in the older structures
  • a failure to achieve automaticity
  • an impediment in the circuit connections among the structures
  • a different circuit for reading
  • mutiple structures, multiple deficits, multiple subtypes.
    
    
• Principle 1: A Flaw in the Older Structures
  
  
  • early study of stroke patients indicated that language deficits could be explained by damage to descrete areas of the brain. [p. 171 - 173]
    
    
  • in the 1970's the new field of psycholinguistics (pioneered by Chomsky) shifted the emphasis from perceptual and visual-based theories to language-based disorders. [p. 173]
    
    
  • "There are now hundreds of phonological studies demonstrating that many children with reading disabilities do not perceive, segment, or manipulate individual syllables and phonemes in the same way as average-reading children do." [p. 174]
    
    
  • "... these children experience the most difficulties learning to read when they are expected to induce the rules of correspondence between letters and sounds on their own. ... programs which systematically and explicitly teach young readers phoneme awareness and grapheme-phoneme correspondence are far more successful in dealing with reading disabilities than other programs." [p. 175]

  Great. There is not just theoretical research trying to understand the situation, but also applied research that is examing various instructional programs.

• Principle 2: A Failure to Achieve Automaticity
  
  
  • "... whether in motor functions, eye, or ear, a breakdown occurs for a number of children with dyslexia when they need to connect the components of a task accurately, serially, and rapidly, not at the most basic level of sensory processing." [p. 178]
    
    
  • "... impaired readers appeared to have ... an 'asynchrony' ... between their visual and auditory processes. It is as if the two areas most needed to make letter-sound correspondence in reading are not sufficiently synchronized for their individual information to become integrated ... " [p. 178]
    
    
  • "... one of the single best predictors of dyslexia in every language tested is a time-related task called 'naming speed' " [p. 178]
    
    
  • "... readers with dyslexia can name colors perfectly well, but they cannot name them rapidly." [p. 178 - 179]
    
    
  • "Deficits in naming speed, however, were never intended to explain dyslexia; rather they represent an index of some underlying problem that is impeding the speed of reading processes." [p. 179]
    
    
• Principle 3: An Impediment in the Circuit Connections Among the Structures

Tags: psychology, reading

I have created a timeline of the important events:

I would rate this book as 4 out of 5.

Tags: history, Canada