PDF(Pubmed)
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.
摘要：
儿童的阅读进度通常在正规教育的长时间休息期间减慢，比如暑假。对于有阅读困难或残疾的儿童来说，这种停滞尤其令人担忧。比如诵读困难,因为有可能加剧他们和同龄人之间的技能差距。阅读干预可以防止技能损失，甚至在夏季带来阅读能力的可观提升。将干预反应与大脑变化相关的纵向研究可以揭示对快速学习驱动的大脑可塑性的教育相关见解。目前的工作重点是阅读结果和白质连接，这使得熟练阅读所需的大脑区域之间能够进行交流。我们在夏初和夏末收集了41名一年级或二年级阅读困难儿童的阅读分数和扩散加权图像。儿童被随机分配接受强化阅读干预（n=26；从Lindamood-Bell看到星星，强调拼字流畅）或被推迟到等待名单组（n=15），使我们能够分析白质属性如何在广泛的技能发展和回归轨迹中变化。平均而言,与非干预组相比，干预组的阅读增益更大，他拒绝阅读分数。改善了近端测量的正交处理（而不是其他更多的远端阅读测量）与核心阅读大脑回路（左弓形束和左下纵向束）内的平均扩散率降低以及左皮质脊髓束的分数各向异性增加有关。我们的发现表明，对强化阅读教学的反应主要与与阅读最相关的领域中的白质可塑性有关。
