Literacy is at the foundation of academic success and children with reading disabilities face challenges throughout their schooling. Research on individual differences in learning has led to the development of intervention programs to improve reading skills in young, struggling readers. However, a concern that remains is the extent to which short-term intervention programs are capable of changing the developmental trajectory of the brain’s reading circuitry. Here I will present new data demonstrating that altering a child’s educational environment through a targeted intervention program can dramatically change the structure of a child’s brain connections, the function of brain circuits, and reading skills. These findings underscore the brain’s impressive capacity for plasticity when children are provided with instruction that is tailored to their needs.
Dr. Jason Yeatman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, at the University of Washington. Before joining the Institute, he completed his PhD in Brian Wandell’s lab at Stanford University where he studied the neural basis of learning to read. His work capitalizes on rapidly evolving MRI methodologies and the development of new, open-source, software algorithms to model the neurobiological basis of cognitive development and understand how brain circuits modify their structure in response to experience. Dr. Yeatman hopes to translate research on the neurobiology of reading development into personalized education programs that are tailored and timed with respect to a child’s unique pattern of brain maturation.
© Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305.
