Dyslexic Advantage - Memory and Dyslexia

Dyslexic Advantage - Memory and Dyslexia

A recent study from Norway shows what people with dyslexia have known a long time...that working memory is affected in dyslexia. In the picture below, control subjects trying to keep letter sounds in mind vs. subjects with dyslexia.

One of the most common mistakes we see in educators approaching the subject of dyslexia is to think the only issues is phonological awareness. Some students have both, but for most, the memory is a problem as big or even bigger than distinguishing sounds.

Problems from Working Memory Challenges

•Hard time following conversations in background noise
•Trouble learning a foreign language
•Problems following a foreign language speaker
•Dismissed as 'inattentive ADD'
•Have to write auditory information down to remember

The importance of realising that working memory issues are affecting dyslexia is that working memory seems to be highly trainable.

Some of greatest leaps in IQ's we've seen over the years have been in students who acquire more strategies to organise their ideas and who work hard at tasks to train up their working memory.

It doesn't always have to be expensive software programs to train up working memory - it can involve persisting at difficult working memory tasks like mathematics, writing, or acquiring an 'easier' foreign language.

Working memory problems also highlight the need to employ multisensory approach to learning sounds. Making images, humorous, or other more interesting information to forgettable facts or sounds can help the data to 'stick'.

Less sleep may add up to more pounds in adolescents

Less sleep may add up to more pounds in adolescents ScienceBlog.com

Adolescents who don't get enough sleep may gain more than some extra time to play video games or text their friends. They also may gain weight, according to research being presented Tuesday, May 4 at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Other studies have shown a relationship between sleep and weight issues, particularly in young children. However, this is one of the first studies to document an association between sleep duration and weight in adolescents, even after controlling for calorie intake, activity level and depressive symptoms.

In research led by Leslie A. Lytle, PhD, from the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children's Research Institute, study investigators collected data on 723 adolescents (mean age 14.7 years) about how long they slept on weeknights and weekends, and how frequently they experienced sleep problems.

On three separate occasions, researchers also asked the youths about the foods and beverages they had consumed the prior day to determine how many calories they consumed.

To measure activity, participants wore accelerometers on their belts for seven days. Unlike pedometers, which count the number steps walked, these highly specialised devices measure movement on three different planes. In addition, the wearer cannot see any data on how active they are.

"The use of accelerometers and 24-hour (dietary) recalls was unique in the study of sleep and weight in youth and is a real strength of the study," Dr. Lytle said.

Researchers also measured participants' weight, body mass index (BMI) and percentage of body fat.

Results showed that shorter sleep duration was related to higher BMI. The relationship was especially strong for boys and for middle school students compared to those in high school. In girls, only less sleep on weekends was related to higher BMI.

"Sleep has long been recognized as an important health behavior," Dr. Lytle said. "We are just beginning to recognise its relationship to overweight and obesity in children and adults alike."

To see the abstract, go to http://www.abstracts2view.com/pas/view.php?nu=PAS10L1_588&terms

The Holy Grail: A Cure for Dyslexia | Dyslexic Brian

The Cure for Dyslexia from Dyslexic Brian

I found this interesting article debating the possibility of a 'cure' for Dyslexia. This is a very emotive discussion point and one that has been extensively explored but I believe this article has greater impact because it is written by Antonio, who is Dyslexic and is therefore eminently qualified to provide us with added insight.

Antonio says;

"I often get asked if it is possible to cure dyslexia to which I generally reply “No”. I reply “No” not because a cure for dyslexia doesn’t exist […], but simply because such a question implies that ‘dyslexia’ stems from some form of ‘deficit’, ‘abnormality’, or some other form of ‘less than normal state of functioning’ that exists within the individual.

Put in another way, such a question implies that the existence of ‘dyslexia’ is not a ‘normal’ aspect of what it is to be ‘human’. Such a question assumes that a ‘norm’ exists; a ‘norm’ that the individual would be brought back to if they were ‘cured’ of their ‘dyslexia’.

So, by me answering “No” to the question, is in my opinion, the correct answer to give, even though [as implied], I believe there to be a ‘cure’ for dyslexia.

[…] what a paradox I have created! How can I, with one breath, say that there is no cure for dyslexia and yet with another, say that there is?

To answer this we need only step into the abstract realm of our dyslexic consciousness and whilst there, in this magical, mysterious space, partially step out (as best we can) from what we have grow to know as our ‘dyslexic self’.

In this ‘in between’ state of consciousness, if the balance is just right, we can simultaneously be and not be our ‘dyslexic self’. We become, so to speak, both dyslexic and non-dyslexic within the same moment of time.

It is here, that we can rise above the ‘reality’ in which we ‘exist’ and look down at ourselves with our new found ‘in between eyes’ and see, maybe for the first time, the ‘true’ person that we have become.

Whilst holding this state we might see how the ‘reality’, to which we were born, has imposed its ‘norms’ upon us, and how it has shaped our identities using false ‘hand me down’ beliefs, views and values.

On seeing this we can, if we choose, begin to recreate our existence as neither dyslexic [nor] non-dyslexic. And, in so doing we precipitate our own ‘cure’; we liberate our thoughts and begin to recreate a new ‘self’ that becomes free with our current, actual ‘reality’."

Antonio Farruggia-Bochnak

Pronouns Aid Brain Function

New research suggests that pronouns may play a far greater role than simply replacing a proper name in a sentence. A University of South Carolina study suggests that pronouns help keep the brain’s complex circuitry and limited memory system from being overloaded.

Using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), psychology researcher Dr. Amit Almor and colleagues studied the brain activity of 21 adults, ages 19 - 34, who were asked to read sequences of sentences to compare the brain’s response to pronouns versus proper names.

Almor’s findings are featured in the cover article in the current issue of the NeuroReport, a scientific journal.

“The brain lit up with activity when proper names were used, including areas that are not associated with language,” Almor said. “We saw considerable activity in areas of the parietal lobe that involve spatial processing that was absent when pronouns were used.”

Almor is the first researcher to use brain imaging to explore the neurological underpinnings of humans’ preference for pronouns. He conducted his research at the university’s McCausland Center for Brain Imaging.

The brain responds to proper names by creating a representation of the person in the mind, drawing from various parts of the brain to construct complex visual, sound and other information associated with that person. Every time the name is repeated, the brain responds by activating a process that creates a new representation of the person.

The brain initially holds each created representation in memory. The integration of these multiple representations requires effort that can disrupt the brain’s ongoing processing of what it hears during spoken conversation.

Pronouns, while faulty for their potential ambiguity, don’t cause the same disruptions in the brain that proper names do when used in the right context. In fact, they allow the brain to move easily from one thought or sentence to another. This seamless transition allows a person to digest more fully the meaning or intent of the thought being conveyed without the neural circuitry interference that proper names cause, said Almor.

“We are at the mercy of our memory system, which is limited,” Almor said. “The more items or representations we hold, the more effort we need to spend so as not to lose information. Pronouns let us avoid that juggle in our brains. I expected to find activity in classic language areas of the brain. I was surprised to see activity in the spatial areas, but it makes perfect sense.”

To read the full article click here on the link

Primary symptoms of psychosis may be evident in 12-year-olds

Children normally experience flights of fancy, including imaginary friends and conversations with stuffed animals, but some of them are also having hallucinations and delusions which might be the early signs of psychosis.

A study of British 12-year-olds that asked whether they had ever seen things or heard voices that weren't really there, and then asked careful follow-up questions, has found that nearly 6 percent may be showing at least one definite symptom of psychosis.

The children who exhibited these symptoms had many of the same risk factors that are known to correlate with adult schizophrenia, including genetic, social, neurodevelopmental, home-rearing and behavioral risks.

"We don't want to be unduly alarmist, but this is also not something to dismiss," said co-author Terrie Moffitt, the Knut Schmidt Nielsen professor of psychology and neuroscience and psychiatry & behavioral sciences at Duke University. The study appears in the April issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.

The children were participants in the long-term Environmental Risk Longitudinal Twin Study in Britain, which includes 2,232 children who have been tracked since age 5 and reassessed at 7, 10 and 12.

The British study is an outgrowth of research that the same group did earlier with a long-term cohort in Dunedin, New Zealand. At age 11, those children were asked about psychotic symptoms, but the researchers waited 15 years to see how, as adults, their symptoms matched what they reported at 11. By age 26, half of the people who self-reported symptoms at age 11 were found to be psychotic as adults.

"It looks like a non-trivial minority of children report these symptoms," said co-author Avshalom Caspi, the Edward M. Arnett professor of psychology and neuroscience and psychiatry & behavioral sciences at Duke.

The findings provide more clues to the development of schizophrenia, but don't solve any questions by themselves, said co-author Richard Keefe, director of the schizophrenia research group in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke.

Schizophrenia often goes undetected until adolescence, when the first overt symptoms -- antisocial behavior, self-harm, delusions -- begin to manifest in an obvious way. But nobody knows whether the disease is triggered by the process of adolescence itself, or brain development or hormone changes. "It's my impression that all of those things interact," Keefe said.

Psychotic symptoms in childhood also can be a marker of impaired developmental processes, and are something caregivers should look for, Moffitt said. "There is not much you can do except monitoring and surveillance," Moffitt said. "But we feel we should be alerting clinicians that there's a minority to pay attention to."

While the incidence of psychotic symptoms in this study was around 5 or 6 percent, the adult incidence of schizophrenia is believed to be about 1 percent, Keefe added. There are some recent findings however, that many more people experience hallucinations and delusions without being diagnosed as psychotic, he said.

The research was supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, UK Medical Research Council, The National Alliance of Research on Schizophrenia and Depression, the Health Research Board of Ireland and the William T. Grant Foundation.

Etiological and Clinical Features of Childhood Psychotic Symptoms, Guilherme Polanczyk et al, Archives of General Psychiatry, April 2010 http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/67/4/328

Link: http://www.duke.edu/

Differences in language circuits in the brain linked to dyslexia - VUCast: Vanderbilt University's News Network

Differences in language circuits in the brain linked to dyslexia - VUCast: Vanderbilt University's News Network

Children with dyslexia often struggle with reading, writing and spelling, despite getting an appropriate education and demonstrating intellectual ability in other areas. New neurological research from Vanderbilt University has found that these children’s difficulties with written language may be linked to structural differences within an important information highway in the brain known to play a role in oral language.

The findings were published in the June 2010 issue of Cortex.

Vanderbilt researchers Sheryl Rimrodt and Laurie Cutting and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University and Kennedy Krieger Institute used an emerging MRI technique, called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), to discover evidence linking dyslexia to structural differences in an important bundle of white matter in the left-hemisphere language network. White matter is made up of fibers that can be thought of as the wiring that allows communication between brain cells; the left-hemisphere language network is made up of bundles of these fibers and contains branches that extend from the back of the brain (including vision cells) to the front parts that are responsible for articulation and speech.

“When you are reading, you are essentially saying things out loud in your head,” Cutting said. “If you have decreased white matter integrity in this area, the front and back part of your brain are not talking to one another. This would affect reading, because you need both to act as a cohesive unit.”

Rimrodt and Cutting used the DTI technique to map the course of an important white matter bundle in this network and discovered that it ran through a frontal brain region known to be less well-organized in the dyslexic brain. They also found that fibers in that frontal part of the tract were oriented differently in dyslexia.

“Finding a convergence of MRI evidence that goes beyond identifying a region of the brain that differs in dyslexia to linking that to an identifiable structure and beginning to explore physical characteristics of the region is very exciting,” Rimrodt said. “It brings us a little bit closer to understanding how dyslexia happens.”

Rimrodt is assistant professor of developmental medicine. Cutting is Patricia and Rodes Hart Chair at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of education and human development and an investigator in the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development. The researchers completed the work at the Kennedy Krieger Institute with their colleagues there before moving to Vanderbilt.

The research was funded by the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine General Clinical Research Center, the Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Learning Disability Research Center and F.M. Kirby Research Center for Functional Brain Imaging, the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

For more information about Vanderbilt’s Peabody College, visit http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu

JISC TechDis Toolbar for Text to Speech, Spell Checking and Dictionary Functions

Here you can see the Demo page of the JISC Techdis Toolbar app developed by Southampton University to help students with Text to Speech, Spell Checking and Dictionary options on all web pages.

It is a downloadable shareware app that is available as an add-on for Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and the MAc OS systems.

Click on the picture or HERE to run the Demo.

The JISC website describes the Techdis Toolbar in this way;

"JISC Techdis Toolbar has been created as an open-source, cross-browser toolbar to help students customise the way they view and interact with web pages to help their study skills.

The concept behind JISC Techdis Toolbar is simple: One toolbar to provide all of the functionality you would usually get in many different products, and which will run in any desktop web browser. "

Got to the JISC Techdis website for more information on this Toolbar and other tools on offer.

NB: This blog does not recommend or endorse applications or products, it is simply here to provide information to the reader.

Inspiration 9 Software: Helps Note taking for Students

For visual mapping, outlining, writing and making presentations, the Inspiration® 9 tool claims to be the ultimate thinking and learning tool for students.

The marketing info on their site continues;

"Brainstorm ideas, structure your thoughts and visually communicate concepts to strengthen understanding with the Diagram and Map Views.

To take notes, organise information, and structure writing for plans, papers and reports, use the integrated Outline View to focus on main and supporting ideas and to clarify thinking in written form.

With Inspiration's Presentation Manager, transform your diagrams, mind maps and outlines into polished presentations that communicate ideas clearly and demonstrate understanding and knowledge. "

We do not endorse this application but simply provide it for your information and it is for you to decide it's usefulness.

If you wish to know more, the link for the website can be found here: http://www.inspiration.com/

Assess 2010 Presentation on Accessibility & Assistive Technology

Click on Link to Lexdis - eLearning

Supporting Accessibility Through Audio