Brain scans can detect which dyslexic students will learn to read, researchers say

By Staff Writer

A new study reveals that sophisticated brain scans can accurately predict which teens with dyslexia would eventually learn to read.

Researchers from Stanford University studied 25 dyslexic adolescents between the ages of 11 and 14, and administered a series of tests, including two different imaging scans. Researchers discovered that about half of the participants had extra activity in a part of the brain near the right temple, known as the right inferior frontal gyrus, the news provider reported. Some children also exhibited stronger connections in a network of brain fibers that links the front and back of the brain.

When the group of dyslexic children were tested again two-and-a-half years later, the children who had the unusual brain activity were more likely to have learned how to read than the other kids. Researchers predicted with 90 percent accuracy which kids would learn to read, based on the brain scans.

Alan Guttmacher, the director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, said that the study gives insight into how certain people with dyslexia compensate for reading problems. The study appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

According to Reuters, dyslexia affects 5 to 17 percent of children in America. About one in five children who have severe dyslexia learn to read later in life.