Brain Scan detects Dyslexia in Children Early, Study Finds

Brain scans can help accurately diagnose dyslexia in children much before they learn and start to read, new research reveals.

Dyslexia or developmental reading disorder is a learning disability that affects a person's ability to read, write and spell words and sentences. As the warning signs of the condition are subtle, it is often difficult to detect the reading disorder until the child starts proper school.

The brain-based learning disability that impairs a person's fluency or comprehension accuracy, affects nearly 5 percent of school-going children in the U.S.

In the current study, researchers from Boston Children's Hospital and Massachusetts Institute of Technology involved nearly 1,000 children. Researchers recorded the participants' reading skills, at the beginning of Kindergarten.  They also recorded and measured the children's phonological awareness (skills of identifying and handling sounds of language). Later, almost 40 children underwent brain scanning with an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) technique called diffusion-weighted imaging.

During the scan, the scientists thoroughly examined three white matter tracts (the arcuate fasciculus, the inferior longitudinal fasciculus and the superior longitudinal fasciculus) related to reading skills situated on the left side of the brain and noticed their size and organization.

Many studies have shown that size of the white matter tract -arcuate fasciculus was smaller and poorly organized in adults with reading difficulties. To re-check the previous findings, John Gabrieli and Nadine Gaab, senior authors along with lead authors, Zeynep Saygin and Elizabeth Norton compared the children's brain scans to the reading tests.

Though the researchers found an association between the brain structure and phonological awareness scores in the children, they couldn't find any link between some other skills like rapid naming (the speed of naming familiar objects) and altered brain structure.

"The work identifies a clear marker that predicts reading, and the marker is present at a very young age. Their results raise questions about the biological basis of the marker and provides scientists with excellent new targets for study," Brian Wandell, director of Stanford University's Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging, said in a news release. Wandell was not involved in the current study.

The experts will be re-confirming their findings conducting experiments on second grade students.

 "We don't know yet how it plays out over time, and that's the big question: Can we, through a combination of behavioral and brain measures, get a lot more accurate at seeing who will become a dyslexic child, with the hope that that would motivate aggressive interventions that would help these children right from the start, instead of waiting for them to fail?" Gabrieli said.

Findings of the study have been published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Continuous efforts to understand and address different types of difficulties associated with Dyslexia have been made. Studies have shown that different methods including leaving wider space between letters, listening devices like FM systems and action video games were of great help to kids suffering from the condition.

Early intervention can help dyslexic children. Hence, it is important to identify this condition early. Following are some symptoms provided by NHS Choices, U.K. which are associated with dyslexia:

• Delay in speech development according to the age
• Difficulties pronouncing certain words
• Speaking difficulties, forgetting the apt word, and problems while constructing a complete sentence
• Inability to understand rhyming words
• Lack of interest in learning alphabets