Although successful reading is critical to the educational and social development of children, few studies have explored the neural representation of reading and its constituent cognitive and sensory skills during the early stages of development. We propose a 3-year longitudinal study using fMRI in conjunction with a battery of psychoeducational assessments to investigate the functional neuroanatomy of reading acquisition in typically developing monolingual English speakers from the 1st to 2nd and on to the 3rd grade. In readers of English we predict left fusiform, superior temporal, and inferior frontal gyri activity to be modulated by age. In addition, we will make direct comparisons between these English speakers and monolingual Mandarin Chinese speakers in mainland China at these three time points, to examine the effects of orthography on the brain areas involved in reading acquisition. As alphabetic and logographic writing systems place different demands on phonological, orthographic, morphological and semantic processes, such comparisons will allow us to identify the neural basis of reading that is universal, as well as brain activity specific to each writing system. Adult data suggest that Chinese character processing makes greater demands on bilateral fusiform and left middle frontal gyri, but does not engage left superior temporal gyrus as is typically reported in English speakers. To test for these differences, comparable experimental approaches will be employed in both countries to assess a variety of reading-related behaviors and brain activity subserving these skills. Neural correlates of reading growth will be assessed using tasks that involve word reading and sensorimotor skills. Task-related activity measured during these paradigms will be evaluated using within- and between-group analyses to evaluate the effect of development and orthography, respectively, as well as their interactions. Correlations between task-related activity and performance on behavioral measures, particularly word recognition and rapid naming, will further help delineate the neural correlates of skills that support reading in these different writing systems. The result will provide normative data by which to compare disordered reading.

Public Health Relevance

This work will provide novel insight into the neural correlates of normal reading development in different writing systems, as these are essential to the investigation of disorders of reading development. ? ? ?

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
1R01HD056107-01A1
Application #
7467609
Study Section
Language and Communication Study Section (LCOM)
Program Officer
Miller, Brett
Project Start
2008-08-15
Project End
2013-05-31
Budget Start
2008-08-15
Budget End
2009-05-31
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2008
Total Cost
$637,921
Indirect Cost
Name
Georgetown University
Department
Pediatrics
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
049515844
City
Washington
State
DC
Country
United States
Zip Code
20057
Turesky, Ted K; Olulade, Olumide A; Luetje, Megan M et al. (2018) An fMRI study of finger tapping in children and adults. Hum Brain Mapp 39:3203-3215
Taylor, C M; Olulade, O A; Luetje, M M et al. (2018) An fMRI study of coherent visual motion processing in children and adults. Neuroimage 173:223-239
Purcell, Jeremy J; Jiang, Xiong; Eden, Guinevere F (2017) Shared orthographic neuronal representations for spelling and reading. Neuroimage 147:554-567
Glezer, Laurie S; Eden, Guinevere; Jiang, Xiong et al. (2016) Uncovering phonological and orthographic selectivity across the reading network using fMRI-RA. Neuroimage 138:248-256
Turesky, Ted K; Turkeltaub, Peter E; Eden, Guinevere F (2016) An Activation Likelihood Estimation Meta-Analysis Study of Simple Motor Movements in Older and Young Adults. Front Aging Neurosci 8:238
Evans, Tanya M; Flowers, D Lynn; Luetje, Megan M et al. (2016) Functional neuroanatomy of arithmetic and word reading and its relationship to age. Neuroimage 143:304-315
Krafnick, Anthony J; Tan, Li-Hai; Flowers, D Lynn et al. (2016) Chinese Character and English Word processing in children's ventral occipitotemporal cortex: fMRI evidence for script invariance. Neuroimage 133:302-312
Evans, Tanya M; Flowers, D Lynn; Napoliello, Eileen M et al. (2014) Sex-specific gray matter volume differences in females with developmental dyslexia. Brain Struct Funct 219:1041-54
Evans, Tanya M; Flowers, D Lynn; Napoliello, Eileen M et al. (2014) The functional anatomy of single-digit arithmetic in children with developmental dyslexia. Neuroimage 101:644-52
Krafnick, Anthony J; Flowers, D Lynn; Luetje, Megan M et al. (2014) An investigation into the origin of anatomical differences in dyslexia. J Neurosci 34:901-8

Showing the most recent 10 out of 15 publications