Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Remediation Rewires Dyslexic Brains

(This information is courtesy of the Fall 2008 Dyslexia Newsletter from Bright Solutions, www.BrightSolutions.US)

A new Carnegie Mellon University brain imaging study of dyslexic students shows that the brain can permanently rewire itself and overcome reading deficits, if students are given 100 hours of intensive remedial instruction.

The study published in the August issue of the journal of Nueropsychologia, shows that the remedial instruction resulted in an increase in brain activity in several cortical regions associated with reading, and that gains became further solidified during the year following instruction.

"This study demonstrates how remedial instruction can use the plasticity of the human brain to gain an educational improvement," said neuroscientist Marcel Just, director of Carnegie Mellon's Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging (CCBI) and senior author of the study.  "Focused instruction can help underperforming brain areas to increase their brain proficiency."

To read the rest of this research article, click here.