White matter microstructural plasticity associated with educational intervention in reading disability
Name
imag_a_00108.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
2.54 MB
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Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
28de09ed1debf15b46d37ea8e81a4e57
Author(s)
Meisler, Steven L
Gabrieli, John DE
Christodoulou, Joanna A
Date Issued
March 14, 2024
Journal
Imaging Neuroscience
Publisher
MIT Press
Citation
Steven L. Meisler, John D. E. Gabrieli, Joanna A. Christodoulou; White matter microstructural plasticity associated with educational intervention in reading disability. Imaging Neuroscience 2024; 2 imag–2–00108.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Children’s reading progress typically slows during extended breaks in formal education, such as summer vacations. This stagnation can be especially concerning for children with reading difficulties or disabilities, such as dyslexia, because of the potential to exacerbate the skills gap between them and their peers. Reading interventions can prevent skill loss and even lead to appreciable gains in reading ability during the summer. Longitudinal studies relating intervention response to brain changes can reveal educationally relevant insights into rapid learning-driven brain plasticity. The current work focused on reading outcomes and white matter connections, which enable communication among the brain regions required for proficient reading. We collected reading scores and diffusion-weighted images at the beginning and end of summer for 41 children with reading difficulties who had completed either 1st or 2nd grade. Children were randomly assigned to either receive an intensive reading intervention (n = 26; Seeing Stars from Lindamood-Bell which emphasizes orthographic fluency) or be deferred to a wait-list group (n = 15), enabling us to analyze how white matter properties varied across a wide spectrum of skill development and regression trajectories. On average, the intervention group had larger gains in reading compared to the non-intervention group, who declined in reading scores. Improvements on a proximal measure of orthographic processing (but not other more distal reading measures) were associated with decreases in mean diffusivity within core reading brain circuitry (left arcuate fasciculus and left inferior longitudinal fasciculus) and increases in fractional anisotropy in the left corticospinal tract. Our findings suggest that responses to intensive reading instruction are related predominantly to white matter plasticity in tracts most associated with reading.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1162/imag_a_00108
