Working in Movement

The term dyslexia refers to difficulty reading, spelling or writing. Kids who experience it are at a disadvantage in school. (Whether this is a a problem with common educational methods rather than the student is another thing entirely.) But dyslexia is not a learned behavior; it is more of a structural than functional problem. Something in the dyslexic kids' brain pathways used for dealing with words is different from those who don't have the symptoms.

But that doesn't mean that learning-based approaches aren't useful. In fact, New Technique Can Help Dyslexic Kids Read Better reports on a recent successful learning-based approach with a small number of kids included in a study at the University of Washington's Center on Human Development and Disability.

Researches at the center chose some kids who had symptoms of dyslexia and some who didn't. The researchers looked at the brains of the kids using MRI. The dyslexic kids went through three weeks of specialized training in the relationship between word forms; how a word sounds, how it is spelled and what it means. In post training MRIs, the dyslexic kids' brain activation patterns were similar to the non-dyslexic kids'.

This is good news, but not a cure according to one of the researchers:

Says Berninger: "I haven't cured them, but I have shown that they are teachable. These kids are ready to learn when they go back to school, but unfortunately the instructional practices aren't in place in the schools to support this jump-start."