Language, Reading, and Phonological Processing and Their Relationship to fMRI Activation in Children with Dyslexia

Abstract:
Children with dyslexia (n=26) and children with normal reading skills (n=25) who ranged in age from 7 to 12 years were pre- and post-tested with a battery of standardized language, reading, and phonological processing measures. Differential improvements on these measures were investigated in younger and older children (median split by age) following a computer-based language intervention for the children with dyslexia. Subsets from both groups of children underwent fMRI. The children with dyslexia received the computerized intervention for 4-6 weeks and exhibited significant improvements across all measures following training. Overall, there was a significant age by time interaction, with younger children exhibiting larger improvements in passage comprehension and rapid naming skills as compared to the improvements recorded for the older children. Change in fMRI activation was correlated with improvements in receptive language skills for younger children, but not for older children. Different patterns of change appear to reflect the effects of intervention as well as compensatory mechanisms across the developmental range of the participants.