Research
Predicting Future Poor Readers from Pre-reading Visual Skills: A longitudinal study
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349522152_Predicting_Future_Poor_Readers_from_Pre-reading_Visual_Skills_A_longitudinal_study
Vernet, Marie & Bellocchi, Stéphanie & Leibnitz, Laurie & Chaix, Yves & Ducrot, Stéphanie. (2021). Applied Neuropsychology Child. 10.1080/21622965.2021.1895790.
Reading is essential for learning, from literature to physics, from paper to screens on e-readers and smart phones. Even if it is well known that learning to read implies good language skills, children also need to develop good oculomotor and visual-perception skills. Thereby, any deficits in visual processing may affect learning. The possible impact of visual deficits is rarely considered, especially with regard to eye movements and visual perception. Hence, these deficits are usually discovered much later or remain undiagnosed. The present study aimed at assessing the usefulness of visual processing related measures in the early detection of reading difficulties. Visual skill differences that are apparent early in kindergarten might provide predictive insights into risk for learning difficulties at school entry. We used a prospective, longitudinal approach where visual processes (assessed with the Developmental Eye Movement (DEM) test) were measured in 51 preschoolers, and the impact of these processes on future reading development was explored one year later, in Grade 1. Results showed that (1) 31% of our sample of preschoolers showed visual processing impairments (without any clinical complaints) and (2) reading accuracy and speed in first graders were significantly correlated with visual skills assessed in kindergarten, thus confirming the significant role of oculomotor and visual-perception processes in the acquisition of reading skills. These suggests the potential for these measures to be used clinically for identifying children at risk for low academic achievement, enabling appropriate targeting of early interventions.
The Occurrence, Identification and Treatment of Convergence Failure in Children with Dyslexia
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1479235408000667
This paper examines a neurological manifestation, convergence insufficiency, as yet not considered in association with the primary diagnosis
of learning/behavioural disorders. When the data from a previous study were initially examined what appeared to be a significantly high
number of the children (57%) demonstrated convergence failure on testing.
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The data were then sorted and convergence failure related to the primary diagnosis, comorbidity patterns and other neurological findings. The conclusion based on this relatively small case series would suggest that a high percentage of children have convergence failure – in association with the primary condition – which can be effectively monitored using a computer generated program and efficiently treated by a combination of cerebellar-based exercises and a computer generated treatment program.
Engaging Eyes improves convergence failure, and therefore improves reading.
Vision Development Center
www.visiondevelopmentcenterpc.com/convergence-insufficiency-may-affect-5-12-percent-of-american-children
According to the American Optometric Association, 60 percent of students identified as “problem learners” may actually have undetected vision problems. One of those problems could be something called convergence insufficiency.
Engaging Eyes improves convergence failure, and therefore improves reading.
Gene Plays Role in Poor Speech Processing, Dyslexia
www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2016/07/gene-plays-role-poor-speech-processing-dyslexia
"We now have evidence that strongly suggests that people with dyslexia don't actually hear all of the sounds
they need to hear,"
"If you have trouble hearing the sounds in your language, you will have trouble learning to read later," he said.
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The study, which appears in the Journal of Neuroscience, involved healthy rats that were taught a variety of speech sound discrimination tasks.
When the DCDC2 gene was suppressed, the rats were virtually unable to identify specific speech sounds.
Kilgard equated the speech discrimination problems with issues experienced by children as they try to learn language skills.
He said the good news about the discovery is that individuals who have trouble distinguishing sounds could potentially recover that
ability through therapy and neural training.
"Neural responses actually can be changed by training. Repetition does change those brain networks," Kilgard said.
Fluency Builder contains the neural training and repetition needed to improve the speech discrimination which is needed for reading.
In the brain, one area sees familiar words as pictures, another sounds out words
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160609093644.htm
Skilled readers can quickly recognize words when they read because the word has been placed in a visual
dictionary of sorts which functions separately from an area that processes the sounds of written words.
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This finding, published online in Neuroimage, matters because unraveling how the brain solves the complex task of reading can help in uncovering the
brain basis of reading disorders, such as dyslexia, say the scientists.
"Beginning readers have to sound out words as they read, which makes reading a very long and laborious process," says the study's lead investigator, Laurie Glezer, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow. The research was conducted in the Laboratory for Computational Cognitive Neuroscience at GUMC, led by Maximilian Riesenhuber, PhD.
"Even skilled readers occasionally have to sound out words they do not know. But once you become a fluent, skilled reader you no longer have to sound out words you are familiar with, you can read them instantly," Glezer explains. "We show that the brain has regions that specialize in doing each of the components of reading. The area that is processing the visual piece is different from the area that is doing the sounding out piece."
Riesenhuber says that these findings might help explain why people with dyslexia have slower, more labored reading.
"Because of phonological processing problems in dyslexia, establishing a finely tuned system that can quickly and efficiently learn and recognize words might be difficult or impossible," he says.
Fluency Builder improves phonological processing which allows you to use the fast visual dictionary to instantly read words, rather than sounding out each word.
Development of Left Occipitotemporal Systems for Skilled Reading in Children After a PhonologicallyBased Intervention
www.haskins.yale.edu/papers/intervention_biol_psych_200.pdf
Background: Immediately after the year-long intervention, children taught with the experimental intervention had made significant gains
in reading fluency and demonstrated increased activation in left hemisphere regionsA range of neurobiological investigations shows a failure of left hemisphere posterior brain systems to function
properly during reading in children and adults with reading disabilities. In this study, we hypothesized that the provision of an evidence-based,
phonologically mediated reading intervention would improve reading fluency and the development of the fast-paced occipitotemporal systems serving skilled reading.
Results: Immediately after the year-long intervention, children taught with the experimental intervention had made significant gains
in reading fluency and demonstrated increased activation in left hemisphere regions
Fluency Builder is based on this intervention which was proven to work both by measuring reading, and by looking at MRI scans of participants.
Reading treatment helps children with dyslexia and changes activity in language areas of the brain
www.neurology.org/content/61/2/E5.full
The instructional treatment in dyslexic children resulted in improvement both in reading skills and
brain activation patterns. The findings from this study suggest that reading treatment in children with dyslexia can be successful.
When it is successful, the pattern of brain activity becomes similar to the activity pattern of normal readers of the same age.
Fluency Builder contains Phoneme Mapping and Morpheme Mapping which this study has proved to be effective at
changing the pattern of brain activity in children with dyslexia.