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Ever thought your brain worked the same way when looking at pictures and text? Not so much.  In the brain, one area sees familiar words as pictures andnother sounds out words, according to newswise.com. Skilled readers can quickly recognize words when they read because the word has been placed in a visual dictionary of sorts which functions separately from an area that processes the sounds of written words, say Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) neuroscientists. The visual dictionary idea rebuts a common theory that our brain needs to “sound out” words each time we see them.  “Beginning readers have to sound out words as they read, which makes reading a very long and laborious process,” says the study’s lead investigator, Laurie Glezer, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow. The research was conducted in the Laboratory for Computational Cognitive Neuroscience at GUMC, led by Maximilian Riesenhuber, PhD. I don't know about you but when I read about the ...

Did you have trouble learning to read? A lot us did.  But we finally mastered it, and now many of us (like me) read about two books a week (more, if I didn't have a teenager!). But a new study now says that those who find it hard when they first begin reading may be at higher risk of Alzheimer's later in life. Older adults with a history of reading problems perform similarly on some neuro-psychological tests to those who show signs of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) associated with early Alzheimer’s disease.  MCI is a term used to identify individuals with memory complaints and poor neuropsychological test performance but who otherwise functional normally. Having MCI has been identified as a risk factor for subsequent diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers assessed the relationship between MCI classification and suspected reading disorder in almost 2,000 participants who were 62 years of age. Individuals with previous dementia, stroke and other neuro...

It probably shouldn't surprise us.  But one third of people who are dyslexic claim to have been physically abused in their lifetimes. According to newswise.com, adults who have dyslexia are much more likely to report they were physically abused before they turned 18 than their peers without dyslexia, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Toronto and the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill. Thirty-five per cent of adults with dyslexia report they were physically abused before they turned 18. In contrast, seven per cent of those without dyslexia reported that they had experienced childhood physical abuse. Dyslexia is a reading disability that occurs when the brain does not properly recognize and process certain symbols. “Even after accounting for age, race, sex and other early adversities such as parental addictions, childhood physical abuse was still associated with a six-fold increase in the odds of dyslexia”...

I had those friends who bought all the Baby Einstein tapes and started using them when their babies were in utero.  And there's that commercial where two-year-olds are reading Shakespeare. But a new study  has found that these parents can no longer feel superior.  Babies cannot learn to read. “While we cannot say with full assurance that infants at this age cannot learn printed words, our results make clear they did not learn printed words from the baby media product that was tested,” says Susan Neuman, a professor in NYU Steinhardt’s Department of Teaching and Learning and the study’s senior author, at newswise.com   Let's face it. We all want to believe our kids are special, even gifted. (My mother always used to brag I spoke in full sentences at one.) But the truth is that, while they may be, the only ones these products have an influence on are -- parents. In exit interviews, newswise reports, "There was the belief among parents that their babies were lea...

Nature vs. nurture?  When it comes to literacy, a professor is saying it's nurture , all the way. According to newswise.com, a University at Buffalo education professor has found that a child’s ability to read "depends mostly on where that child is born, rather than on his or her individual qualities." Ming Ming Chiu says that individual characteristics make up only 9% of the differences between a child who can read and one who cannot. What affects this heavily is the country in which a child is born, says Chiu, lead author of an international study that explains this connection and a professor in the Department of Learning and Instruction in UB’s Graduate School of Education. He adds that this largely determines whether he or she will have at least basic reading skills, according to newswise.com. The Web site reports that it's clearly a case where 'nurture' — the environment and surroundings of the child — is more important than 'nature — the ...