Danielle's Story

Reading has never come easy for Danielle, a 10-year-old who dreams of becoming a schoolteacher someday. Ever since kindergarten, she has complained that school is “too hard.” Despite the fourth-grader's success in her school choir and art class, Danielle still has trouble deciphering words and gets discouraged easily.

Danielle is not alone. Dyslexia affects 2 to 10 percent of school-aged American children. The disorder makes it difficult to read even the simplest words, despite having normal intelligence.

It's hard to tell if your child has a something that you can't see. Luckily, times are changing. A non-invasive technique used by researchers at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston is helping doctors locate brain dysfunctions like dyslexia.

Snapshots of Dyslexia

UT scientists have identified certain brain activity that recognizes words in children with dyslexia. By using magnetoencephalography, or MEG for short, researchers are literally taking a picture of the brain to map brain dysfunctions like dyslexia.

Contrary to popular belief, people with dyslexia do not necessarily reverse letters and numbers or see words backwards. The root of the problem seems to be an inability to make the connection between the sound and the letter symbol for that sound.

“One of our goals was to determine if there was a peculiarity of the brain activation pattern or a motivational or any other problem not related to brain function on the children's end,” says Dr. Andrew Papanicolaou, professor and director of the Medical School's Division of Clinical Neurosciences. “With MEG, we can now identify parts of the brain that are necessary for higher functions like memory and attention.”

The research team examined 30 children who were diagnosed with dyslexia and 30 children who read normally. Brain activity was measured while the children were reading. In almost all cases, brain activity was nearly the same in the dyslexic children, showing more activity in certain parts of the right half of the brain – exactly opposite of those activated in the left side of the brain of normal readers.

Mapping The Brain for Better Reading

Papanicolaou hopes the team's findings will help resolve the debate over learning disorders being either a brain dysfunction or behavioral problem.

“With MEG, we found that the brain activity pattern in dyslexic children is very different from normal readers,” Papanicolaou says. Many disorders like dyslexia that were previously thought to be unrelated to the brain are likely to be shown to be due to some peculiarity of brain function.”

Papanicolaou and his colleague, Dr. Shirin Sarkari, dyslexia screening project director, continue to test dyslexic children. These children have been referred for intensive tutoring and are becoming remarkably good readers.

“Recent studies have shown that brain systems involved in reading respond to effective reading instruction,”Papanicolaou explains. “In time, poor readers' brains begin to function more like the brains of good readers.”

Signs of Dyslexia

One of the more confounding aspects of dyslexia is that no single pattern of difficulty affects all dyslexic people, Sarkari explains. In fact, a dyslexic person may be able to read beautifully “yet find it extremely difficult or impossible to write or spell clearly or accurately,” she adds.

Although it may not spell dyslexia, here are some characteristics to look for should you suspect your child has a learning disorder:

• Poor reading skills, even if the child can grasp the subject
• Difficulty remembering the sounds that letters make or hearing slight differences between words
• Struggling to express ideas in writing
• Inability to complete assignments and tests within designated periods of time
• Confusion with math symbols and misreading numbers

Sarkari says that a dyslexic person may experience some of these symptoms:

• A child may be able to connect the letters and sound out words but not recognize words that he or she has seen hundreds of times before.
• The child might be able to read the words but not be able to make sense of what has been read. The child may have to read the same passage over and over.
• One of the core problems is that the child can see the letters but cannot connect them to their sounds. The same is true of whole words.
• Common to public perception, some dyslexics see words backwards, letters mixed up or upside down.
• Letters that appear similar in shape- e and c or o may be difficult to discern.
• Letters such as b and p and d and q are often confused
• Then again, a dyslexic person may have any or none of the symptoms just listed.

Papanicolaou says if your child has problems learning how to read, listen, write, speak or do math, then follow up with a professional evaluation from the child's school. The school psychologist or learning specialist will run a battery of tests including an IQ test and other tests to measure thinking ability, reading, spelling and writing abilities.

“You can also talk to your child's pediatrician to rule out vision or hearing problems, or to get a referral if needed,” Papanicolaou adds. “If it's a learning disability, it can be addressed. The sooner, the better.”

UPDATED: 3-08-2005

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