Brain Imaging Could Help Target Dyslexia Interventions
New brain-imaging research at Stanford University has found distinct differences in the brains of dyslexic adolescents that may help predict who will be better or worse at compensating for their disability.
The study, published in the December Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was led by Fumiko Hoeft, an associate director of neuroimaging applications at Stanford University School of Medicine, in collaboration with researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Jyväskylä in Finland and the University of York in England.
The researchers studied 45 students ages 11 to 14, 25 of whom who had been diagnosed with dyslexia based on a battery of tests of phonemic awareness, reading comprehension, speed and fluidity, spelling, vocabulary and the ability to rapidly name objects, letters, numbers and colors.
The team conducted on each child a functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI scan, which reveals oxygen flowing to different parts of the brain during activities, and diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging, or DTI, which shows the neural connections active among different parts of the brain during activities. Each student was put into the imagers, then shown pairs of printed words and asked to identify which words rhymed, while researchers recorded the activity in their brains.
Two and a half years later, the researchers again tested the students’ reading levels and compared the results to the initial brain scans. The graphic below, from the National Institutes of Health, shows how the brains of different students differed. As the left image shows, students who compensated better for their dyslexia had more neural connections in the superior longitudinal fasiculus, which is associated with processing visual text. As the center image shows, during rhyming these students also had increased brain activity in the inferior frontal gyrus, an area of the brain associated with the ability to manage ongoing activities. Contrast this to the image on the far right, in which brains of typically developing readers simply showed more brain activity on the left side during rhyming.
When the imaging results were included with a diagnostic formula, the researchers could predict more than nine times out of 10 which students would improve their reading skills two years later.
“This finding provides insight into how certain individuals with dyslexia may compensate for reading difficulties,” said Dr. Alan E. Guttmacher, director of the National Institute of Health’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which provided funding for the study, in a statement on the findings. “Understanding the brain activity associated with compensation may lead to ways to help individuals with this capacity draw upon their strengths. Similarly, learning why other individuals have difficulty compensating may lead to new treatments to help them overcome reading disability.”
The study also highlights the ways neuroscience is starting to reveal variations among students with the same learning disabilities. Researchers hope to eventually use such studies to target educational interventions more closely to individual students’ learning needs.
Senate Confirms Statistics Commissioner, IES Board Members
At the 11th hour of the 111th Congressional session, the Senate at last plugged several long-standing holes in the leadership of the nation’s education research agency.
By voice vote, the Senate approved Sean P. “Jack” Buckley, of New York, to be Commissioner of Education Statistics through June 21, 2015. Mr. Buckley, an associate professor of applied statistics at New York University, is known for his research into charter school accountability and research-based teacher training systems. The vote at last provides a permanent leader to the statistics office, which has operated under the temporary leadership of acting commissioner Stuart Kerachsky for more than two years.
In addition, Senators approved three of the four outstanding nominations to the National Board for Education Sciences, the advisory board to the Institute of Education Sciences: Robert A. Underwood, of Guam and Kris D. Gutierrez of Colorado will serve through Nov. 28, 2012; Anthony Bryk, of California, will serve through Nov. 28, 2011. However, the Senate declined to confirm board nominee Beverly L. Hall, outgoing Atlanta school district superintendent, who resigned amid investigations into cheating on standardized tests in the urban district.
The NBES also still awaits replacements for three members whose terms expired in November. The board has also just sent out a call for an executive director to help coordinate work between the board and IES, and provide continuity to the frequently turning over board membership.
Refugee ‘Little Bill Clinton’ Shines on the Soccer Field
Bill Clinton Hadam has probably had more written about him in an American newspaper than any other refugee boy living in this country.
Journalist Mary Wiltenburg wrote a yearlong series about the boy’s adjustment from a refugee camp in Tanzania to school in Atlanta, Ga., that was published in the Christian Science Monitor in 2009. The series about a boy who had been named after former President Bill Clinton was called “Little Bill Clinton: A School Year in the Life of a New American,” and won 1st prize in the multimedia category for 2009 from the Education Writers Association.
This week, The Christian Science Monitor published an update on Little Bill Clinton’s life. He was one of 40 players his age to be selected for Georgia’s statewide Olympic Development Team, a training program from which future U.S. Olympic and World Cup teams will primarily be selected.
Wiltenburg reports how Little Bill Clinton’s passion for soccer began when he was still living in the Tanzanian refugee camp, playing with balls he made himself from plastic bags and twine. After he came to the United States, he joined a school soccer team, where a parent recognized his talent and convinced a local YMCA to finance the boy’s participation on its soccer team. Others have stepped in to ensure that the boy, now 11, had what he needed to fully participate in the Y team, such as gear and transportation to practices and games.
What strikes me about this tale is about how the support provided to immigrant or refugee children in school can make a huge difference in the future prospects for the newcomers.
I’m wondering where Little Bill Clinton would be in developing his soccer talent, for instance, if the parent who directed the school soccer program that the boy initially joined hadn’t shown an interest in his potential.
Shortage of Science Games Research Noted
While games and simulations have great potential to address challenges in K-12 science education, the research needed to achieve that potential is limited, says a new report by the National Research Council.
In fact, “when compared with subject areas such as reading and mathematics, there is relatively little research evidence on the effectiveness of simulations and games for learning,” says the report, which came out of a two-day workshop about science education and computer games and simulations.
The report examined games and simulations such as River City, Whyville, SURGE, Savannah, TimeLab, Interactive Physics, ChemLab, and Froguts, among others. The games and simulations were classified by the science learning goal of the game, the duration of the game, the nature of participation in the game, and the primary purpose of the game.
The committee recommended more targeted research in the following areas: the role of simulations and games in learning, using them in formal and informal contexts, using them to assess and support individualized learning, and scaling up simulations and games.
You can purchase the report here, or check out a description of the project here.
Diane Ravitch To Receive Moynihan Prize
We’ve just learned that Diane Ravitch will receive the 2011 Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize from the American Academy of Political and Social Science. To quote from the Academy’s website: the prize was created to “recognize social scientists and other leaders in the public arena who champion the use of informed judgment to advance the public good.” Diane is being honored for her work in urban education, both as a researcher and a public official. Congratulations, Diane!
Reminder: Bridging Differences returns Jan. 4, 2011.
On Holiday Break
Bridging Differences takes a well-deserved break starting today. The blog will return on Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2011. Happy holidays to all, and see you in the new year!