Return-Path: <nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id j9RN68G00662; Thu, 27 Oct 2005 19:06:08 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 19:06:08 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <a05111b0abf87094cb845@[10.14.3.234]> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: Anne Murr <anne.murr@DRAKE.EDU> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-LD:4962] Re: LD and intensive phonics X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1 Status: O Content-Length: 2164 Lines: 47 Robin and all, Thanks Robin for such a thorough and enlightening posting. I am really late in joining this discussion. But I want to give you this reference which also supports Pugh's finding that the process of reading is the same in any language and occurs in the same part of the brain. Paulesu, E., Démonet, j.-F., Fazio, F., McCrory, E., Chanoine, V., Brunswick, N, et al. (2001). Dyslexia: Cultural diversity and biological unity, Science, 291, 2165-2167. This research identified dyslexics who spoke Italian, French and English. Brain scans taken while they were reading were compared to the brain scans of proficient readers in the 3 languages. The scans for dyslexics across the 3 languages was the same --- but different from the scans for proficient readers. Good readers use the base of the brain where vision connects to sounds and then to meaning. Dyslexic readers have a smaller portion of brain activity at the base of the brain (what is seen is processed) but the phonological processing part of the brain is not activated. Dyslexics have greater frontal lobe activitiy --- where higher order thinking occurs. This confirms my observation that poor readers have strong cognitive skills. They just process words with difficulty. One interesting piece from this research is that the Italian dyslexics didn't know they were dyslexic because they could read. 300 college students were given a spelling test. The 10% poorest spellers were given tasks that involved manipulating sounds in words (switch the first sounds of 2 words -- change basket and lemon to lasket and bemon, and reading of nonsense words). These tasks indicate phonolgical processing difficulties. The poorest performing with those tasks were the dyslexic Italians. How many of you would have difficulty with such tasks? "Shades of dyslexia!" I prefer to use the term language processing differences instead of "dyslexia" because I feel it's more precise. Anne -- Anne Murr, M.S., Director Drake University Adult Literacy Center 1213 25th Street Des Moines, IA 50311 anne.murr@drake.edu Tel 515-271-3982 Fax 515-271-4185
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