Aim
This study compared the time spent using screen‐based media or reading on the functional connectivity of the reading‐related brain regions in children aged 8–12.
Methods
We recruited 19 healthy ...American children from a private school in Cincinnati, USA, in 2015‐6 after advertising the study to parents. The parents completed surveys on how many hours their children spent on independent reading and screen‐based media time, including smartphones, tablets, desktop or laptop computers and television. The children underwent magnetic resonance imaging that assessed their resting‐state connectivity between the left visual word form area, as the seed area, and other brain regions, with screen time and reading time applied as predictors.
Results
Time spent reading was positively correlated with higher functional connectivity between the seed area and left‐sided language, visual and cognitive control regions. In contrast, screen time was related to lower connectivity between the seed area and regions related to language and cognitive control.
Conclusion
Screen time and time spent reading showed different effects on functional connectivity between the visual word form area and language, visual and cognitive control regions of the brain. These findings underscore the importance of children reading to support healthy brain development and literacy and limiting screen time.
Executive functions are a set of top‐down cognitive processes necessary for emotional self‐regulation and goal‐directed behaviour supporting, among others, academic abilities. Premature infants are ...at high risk for subsequent cognitive, psychosocial, or behavioural problems even in the absence of medical complications and in spite of normal brain imaging. Given that this is a sensitive period of brain growth and maturation, these factors may place preterm infants at high risk for executive function dysfunction, disrupted long‐term development, and lower academic achievements. Therefore, careful attention to interventions at this age is essential for intact executive functions and academic development.
ABSTRACT
This review paper aims to define the involvement of Executive Functions (EF) in reading fluency in typically developing children and those with reading difficulties (RD)/dyslexia using ...neuroimaging and cognitive measurements. The data presented in this review demonstrate how training reading fluency with EF principles improved reading fluency and associated neural circuits. The possible mechanism for this fluency improvement points to the utilization of EF during reading remediation and its relation to the synchronization between the auditory and visual modalities in RD. Overall, the studies reviewed in the current paper suggest that reading fluency is achieved through a better synchronization of EF‐brain regions with sensory networks, which are linked to decreased neural noise. These results support embedding EF principles in reading training and point to the need to include the fluency component in the Simple View of Reading model and open up possible opportunities to improve reading in children.
LAY ABSTRACT
This review aims to define the involvement of Executive Functions (EF) in reading fluency among typical readers and children with reading difficulties (RD) using neuroimaging and cognitive measurements. It points to the possibility of utilizing EF‐based reading training to improve reading fluency and support embedding EF principles in reading training.
Aim
This specific review aims to expose clinicians, researchers and administrators in hospitals to the importance, procedures and safety of fMRI studies to promote the increased utilisation of such ...studies in different geographical places worldwide. The child's brain is developing rapidly, both structurally and functionally. These functional changes can only be detected using functional scans generated from an MRI machine and referred to as a functional MRI (fMRI). This method may be used clinically in complex medical and surgical conditions (e.g., epilepsy surgery), but these days are often used for research purposes. However, due to ethical and logistical considerations, fMRI in the paediatric population is not widely and equally used in different geographical places.
Conclusions
The benefits of using this method to define the functional changes occurring in the developing brain are discussed in this review, along with desensitisation methods recommended when working with this vulnerable population in research and even in a clinical setting.
Aim
Caregiver‐child reading is advocated by health organisations, citing cognitive and neurobiological benefits. The influence of home literacy environment (HLE) on brain structure prior to ...kindergarten has not previously been studied.
Methods
Preschool‐age children completed assessments of language (EVT‐2, CTOPP‐2 Rapid Object Naming) and emergent literacy skills (Get Ready to Read!, The Reading House) followed by diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Parents completed a survey of HLE (StimQ‐P2 READ), which has four subscales. DTI measures included axial diffusivity (AD), radial diffusivity (RD), mean diffusivity (MD) and fractional anisotropy (FA).
Results
Forty‐seven children completed DTI (54 ± 7 months, range 36‐63; 27 girls). StimQ‐P2 READ scores correlated with higher EVT‐2, GRTR and TRH scores, controlling for age and gender (P < .01), and also with lower AD, RD and MD in tracts supporting language and literacy skills, controlling for age, gender and income (P < .05, family‐wise error corrected). Correlations were strongest for the Bookreading Quantity subscale, including with higher scores on all cognitive measures including CTOPP‐2, and also with higher FA in left‐lateralised literacy‐supporting tracts, controlling for age, gender and income.
Conclusion
More nurturing home reading environment prior to kindergarten may stimulate brain development supporting language and literacy skills, reinforcing the need for further study.
Aim
Shared reading leads to better language and executive functions. This study was designed to examine the effect of dialogic reading compared to screen‐exposed intervention on executive functions ...using behavioural and electroencephalogram measures.
Methods
The effect of six weeks of dialogic reading intervention on executive functions was examined in 16 children (seven females, 61.73 months, SD 7.07, min–max 50–170) vs 16 children exposed to screen (six females, 64.31 months, SD 64.31, min–max 52–74) recruited through posted ads in daycares in the north of Israel. Behavioural and attention/inhibition electroencephalogram tasks were used to assess the effects of intervention.
Results
Comparisons using t‐test showed that the dialogic reading group demonstrated higher executive functions and language scores vs the screen‐exposed group. Greater accuracy rates, shorter reaction times and a smaller gap between P300 amplitudes were found for the dialogic reading group compared to the screen group for the electroencephalogram task.
Conclusion
Dialogic reading intervention is related to improved executive functions and language abilities compared to screen‐based story‐telling. Parents and teachers should consider employing this method in preschool children as a facilitator for future academic abilities.
Poor phonological processing has typically been considered the main cause of dyslexia. However, visuo‐attentional processing abnormalities have been described as well. The goal of the present study ...was to determine the involvement of visual attention during fluent reading in children with dyslexia and typical readers. Here, 75 children (8–12 years old; 36 typical readers, 39 children with dyslexia) completed cognitive and reading assessments. Neuroimaging data were acquired while children performed a fluent reading task with (a) a condition where the text remained on the screen (Still) versus (b) a condition in which the letters were being deleted (Deleted). Cognitive assessment data analysis revealed that visual attention, executive functions, and phonological awareness significantly contributed to reading comprehension in both groups. A seed‐to‐voxel functional connectivity analysis was performed on the fluency functional magnetic resonance imaging task. Typical readers showed greater functional connectivity between the dorsal attention network and the left angular gyrus while performing the Still and Deleted reading tasks versus children with dyslexia. Higher connectivity values were associated with higher reading comprehension. The control group showed increased functional connectivity between the ventral attention network and the fronto‐parietal network during the Deleted text condition (compared with the Still condition). Children with dyslexia did not display this pattern. The results suggest that the synchronized activity of executive, visual attention, and reading‐related networks is a pattern of functional integration which children with dyslexia fail to achieve. The present evidence points toward a critical role of visual attention in dyslexia.
Typical readers showed greater functional connectivity between the dorsal attention network and the left angular gyrus while performing the Still and Deleted reading tasks versus children with dyslexia. The control group showed increased functional connectivity between the ventral attention network and the fronto‐parietal network during the Deleted text condition (compared with the Still condition). The results suggest that the synchronized activity of executive, visual attention, and reading‐related networks is a pattern of functional integration which children with dyslexia fail to achieve.
Based on the relationship between working memory and error detection, we investigated the capacity of adult dyslexic readers' working memory to change as a result of training, and the impact of ...training on the error detection mechanism.
27 dyslexics and 34 controls, all university students, participated in the study. ERP methodology and behavioral measures were employed prior to, immediately after, and 6 months after training. The CogniFit Personal Coach Program, which consists of 24 sessions of direct training of working memory skills, was used.
Both groups of readers gained from the training program but the dyslexic readers gained significantly more. In the dyslexic group, digit span increased from 9.84+/-3.15 to 10.79+/-3.03. Working memory training significantly increased the number of words per minute read correctly by 14.73%. Adult brain activity changed as a result of training, evidenced by an increase in both working memory capacity and the amplitude of the Error-related Negativity (ERN) component (24.71%). When ERN amplitudes increased, the percentage of errors on the Sternberg tests decreased.
We suggest that by expanding the working memory capacity, larger units of information are retained in the system, enabling more effective error detection. The crucial functioning of the central-executive as a sub-component of the working memory is also discussed.
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