Why do Italians with dyslexia have an inbuilt advantage compared with English children? Usha Goswami explains
Does dyslexia really exist? Of course. All over the world, it is recognised as a specific learning difficulty intimately linked to the way we process language. Recent scientific research has found that dyslexia reflects atypical development in learning the sound structure of language – its “phonology”.
Modern brain imaging helps to show where problems may lie. In skilled readers, brain activity in the left hemisphere’s network of spoken language areas increases as they read. In children with developmental dyslexia, this network activity is reduced and there is more activity in right hemisphere networks.
Particularly crucial is an area in the left hemisphere that turns print into sound. It is called the posterior superior temporal cortex. All children with dyslexia find it difficult to count syllables in spoken words, to judge whether spoken words rhyme and to retain speech-based information in short-term memory.
The neural inefficiencies which result in dyslexia are shared across languages, with a similar prevalence of 5 to 7 per cent. Dyslexics in Chinese, French and Italian show similar characteristics. Nevertheless, its manifestation differs according to language. This is because of syllable structure and spelling systems.
Usha Goswami is Professor of Education and director of the Centre for Neuroscience in Education at the University of Cambridge
Read the full story in this week's TES Magazine, out Friday August 17
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