Monday December 8, 2008 5:30 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

The first activity this morning was to see if I could identify the 6 major dimensions of reading activity and the 5 levels of reading ability. It has been three days since I last looked at this; orthographic - writing phonological - oral language syntactic - grammar semantic - understanding pragmatic - daily use morphological - roots of words and their variations. Levels: pre-reading, novice, decoding, fluent, expert. Good. Now to continue with my notes for chapter 7.

• "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]

Continuing with my notes ...

• Principle 3: An Impediment in the Circuit Connections Among the Structures
  
  
• "Connections within the reading circuit are as important as the structures themselves." [p. 182]
  
  
• There are "at least three forms of disconnection that are consistently studied in this type of research ..." [p. 182]
  
  
• "These findings move us ... to the most provocative of the four hypotheses, the possibility of a differently rearranged brain." [p. 183]
  
  
• Principle 4: A Different Circuit for Reading
  
  
  • "... brain-image findings ... show delays [in dyslexic subjects] at every step of processing from visual-orthographic recognition to semantic processing ..." [p. 186]
    
    
  • "In addition, ... readers with dyslexia appear to use brain circuitry different from that of a typical reader." [p. 186]
    
    
  • "... a product of cummulative research at many laboratories in various parts of the world ... It is hardly finished. At best, it is thought-provoking; at worst, it is misleading. In imaging and educational research ... 'Their seeming impermeability gives the illusion of truth' when, in fact, they are simply our best interpretation of statistical averages on the number of subjects we have to date." [p. 186]

  Lovely. I appreciate the cautionary point. Further, it seems to me, brain imagery may show areas of activity, but we still have little idea of what this activity entails.

  • "... the history of hypotheses about dyslexia suggests an overarching insight - that no one hypothesis will ever explain all possible forms of reading disabilities, especially across different languages." [p. 188]
    
    
  • "It shifts the focus of research from finding the 'primary cause' of dyslexia to finding the most prevalent subtypes of readers with dyslexia." [p. 188]
    
    
• Principle 5: The Unwanted Principle - Multiple Structures, Multiple Deficits, and Multiple Subtypes
  
  
  • "Accepting the idea of subtypes is much easier than fitting real children, with their mix of characteristics that change over the course of development, into any empirically based classification system." [p. 188]

  Perfect. I agree completely.

  • research in this area is still in its infancy, but it does show promise at describing the characteristics of dyslexia.
    
    
  • "It shows that everything matters in reading: the tiniest feature detectors in visual and auditory processes; the different amounts of time needed to connect the various processes in different writing systems; the question of which hemisphere does what." [p. 192]
    
    
  • "Intervention for children with dyslexia should address the development of each of reading's contributing components - from orthography and phonology to vocabulary and morphology - their connections, their fluency, and their integration in comprehension." [p. 194]

  In a book that I am thoroughly enjoying, this is the one sentence that annoys me. Having read it, I still have no idea what a teacher should do when they realize that a student "has" dyslexia.

  • "Children with any form of dyslexia are not 'dumb' or 'stubborn'; nor are they 'not working to potential' - the three most frequent descriptions they endure." [p. 194]
    
    
  • "But if I am correct, dyslexia will turn out to be a stunning example of the strategies used by the brain to compennsate: when it can't perform a function one way, it rearranges itself to find another, literally." [p. 197]

Chapter 8. Genes, Gifts, and Dyslexia

• This chapter points out that many, many famous people, and many not so famous, had very successful lives even though they were likely dislexic. (e.g Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci).
  
  
• "Not all children with dyslexia have extraordinary talents, but every one of them has a unique potential that all too often goes unrealized because we don't know how to tap it." [p. 208]

I see two issues here. One is to help a dylexic individual achieve their potential, which may or may not involve much reading. The other is to help them learn to read to the best of their ability.

• "For reasons we've explored, children struggling to read aren't going to be helped by the one-size-fits-all approach that is typical in so many schools. Rather, we need teachers who are trained to use a toolbox of principles that they can apply to different types of children. And we need educational research that ... seeks to investigate and understand what emphases work best under what conditions for which children." [p. 209]

This sounds good, but as has been acknowledged, we actually do not (yet) know how to adequately diagnose most childen who are having difficulties (a question of resources) nor do we have materials (again a question of resouces, and money) or time (again a question of resources, and money) for such specialized attention. But it would be nice to fund a few pilot projects to show what is possible when those resources are available. If the results are positive, then more money and a shift in our societal and educational priorities may follow.

Chapter 9. Conclusions: From the Reading Brain to "What Comes Next"

My comments in the previous box represent my best idea on "what comes next". This has been a great read, one that has taught me much, and made me think. Perfect.

Tags: psychology, reading