Dyslexia

Question 1

What is dyslexia?

Answer 1

A developmental reading disorder involving difficulty in accurate and/or fluent word recognition and spelling.

Question 2

What is the phonological deficit hypothesis?

Answer 2

Dyslexia is caused by impaired phonological awareness — difficulty mapping sounds to letters.

Question 3

Which brain regions are underactive in dyslexia?

Answer 3

Left temporoparietal cortex, Broca’s area, and the VWFA.

Question 4

What did Shaywitz et al. (2002) find?

Answer 4

Dyslexics showed underactivation in left language areas, overactivation in right frontal regions.

Question 5

What did Paulesu et al. (2001) show?

Answer 5

Dyslexics across different languages share the same brain activation patterns.

Question 6

What did Temple et al. (2003) show?

Answer 6

Training improved reading and increased activation in left hemisphere areas.

Question 7

What structural differences exist in dyslexia?

Answer 7

Reduced grey matter volume in language areas (Eckert et al., 2005).

Question 8

What did Pugh et al. (2000) and Dehaene et al. (2010) show?

Answer 8

VWFA underactivation is common in dyslexia.