Neuroimaging studies of early language development, reading and reading disability: An update on recent findings.

Pugh, K. R.

Haskins Laboratories

Good reading skills are crucial for success in the modern world. Reading disability (RD) is characterized as a brain-based difficulty in acquiring fluent decoding skill, associated with problems in operating on the phonological structures of language. We review recent findings from ongoing longitudinal studies in our lab with low and high risk children that indicate that atypically developing children fail to organize a coherent left hemisphere reading circuitry that in typically developing (TD) readers comes online to support fluent word reading. New longitudinal findings on gene-brain-behavior pathways in early language development and reading are discussed in detail (including new findings on links between abnormal neurochemistry and atypical language and reading development). We also provide an update on our latest research on the brain basis of treatment and remediation of language and literacy disorders. Finally, we will discuss new directions in research on language development research including ongoing studies of learning and consolidation in language acquistion, and cross language comparative research on universals in speech and reading neurocircuits and on second language learning across contrastive languages.