Jason Yeatman
Stanford Graduate School of Education, Universety of Stanford
Educational interventions offer a powerful tool to understand how a child’s environment shapes the development of specialized brain circuits for new cognitive functions such as literacy. I will first present a series of intervention studies that highlight the dynamic interplay between white matter plasticity, functional properties of the reading circuitry, and the process of learning to read. Specifically, I will discuss findings demonstrating that while structural pathways undergo rapid, intensive-instruction-dependent remodeling, some aspects of the underlying functional architecture of the visual system remain remarkably stable. By examining the long-term effects of intervention programs in children with dyslexia, I will present a new framework for considering the balance between stability and plasticity in the developing brain and its implications for learning disabilities like dyslexia.
