2022 Dyslexia Research Updates
October was Dyslexia Awareness Month, and that means it is time to look at the new research that came out on how teachers can better support their students with dyslexia.
- Dyslexia Without Deficits
In recently published research, Helen Taylor and Martin David Vestergaard raise the possibility that people with dyslexia are gifted in explorative search, and play an essential role in human adaptation, given their abilities to uniquely observe patterns and define and solve problems that neurotypical people may not see.
Teacher takeaway: Try asking students to research and discuss a topic from many different angles, without a particular solution in mind. Learning like this gives students with dyslexia the time and space to explore, invent and discover.
2. White Matter Might Matter
White matter can be thought of as the internet of the brain, says neuroscientist John Gabrieli of MIT. These bundles of nerve fibers connect different brain regions and allow them to communicate. The more whit ematter is used, the more it thickens, making communication speedier and more efficient.
In new research, Gabrieli and Steven Meisler compared the neural tracts of white matter thought to transfer information during reading in children with various reading abilities. The goal was to see if children with reading challenges, including dyslexia, had weaker white matter tracts.
The study indicated that, in older children (third grade and above), letter-sound correspondence skills are associated with greater white matter coherence in two important fiber tracts in the brain.
Teacher takeaway: This confirms what special education teachers and literacy specialists already know: letter-sound correspondence is crucial for reading achievement.
3. Asymmetry Might be a Brain’s Best Friend
Understanding dyslexia has never been easy, and that rings true with the research led by Mark Eckert from the Medical University of South Carolina that suggests both genetics and environmental factors likely impact reading success.
Stronger readers are believed to have asymmetrical brains, where the left side is more developed than the right side. Researchers confirmed that left brain asymmetry connected to non-word reading can increase over time, suggesting that reading ability is somewhat tied to experience and environment.
Teacher takeaway: The main takeaway for teachers is that early interventions for students with unclear speech or difficulty with sound-letter correspondence should focus on strengthening phonological capacities.
For more information and to read our full blog on dyslexia, please go to our website.
