Brain circuitry expands and matures at an extraordinary rate during the ages just prior to puberty. This is also the age range over which children develop many important cognitive skills, such as reading. With the advent of several new brain imaging technologies, it is now possible to make noninvasive measurements of brain development in regions that, in adult, are essential for skilled reading. Following individual children as they mature over the ages of 8 to 11 years, we propose to study the development of the functional responses in two specific reading-related brain regions. We also propose to track the anatomical development of these areas in individual children. One region, in the ventral occipital temporal cortex, selectively responds to simple orthographic patterns in adult readers. A second region, in the lateral occipital cortex, is powerfully activated during normal reading and is known to signal weakly in adults with poor reading skills. We will combine neuroimaging measurements of (a) functional responses to simple stimuli, (b) anatomical development of the neural circuitry, with (c) careful behavioral assessments of reading to better understand the connection between behavior and brain development. We expect anatomical and functional development in these two brain regions to correlate with the development of skilled reading. Further, we expect that the failure of normal development in one or both of these regions will help to diagnose potential difficulties in reading development.
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