Neural Correlates of Letter Reversal in Children and Adults
Children often make letter reversal errors when first learning to read and write, even for letters whose reversed forms do not appear in normal print. However, the brain basis of such letter reversal in children learning to read is unknown. The present study compared the neuroanatomical correlates (...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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Public Library of Science
2014
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/88053 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4429-0324 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1158-5692 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8259-7079 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2405-7875 |
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| author | Blackburne, Liwei King Eddy, Marianna D. Kalra, Priya Yee, Debbie Sinha, Pawan Gabrieli, John D. E. |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Blackburne, Liwei King Eddy, Marianna D. Kalra, Priya Yee, Debbie Sinha, Pawan Gabrieli, John D. E. |
| author_sort | Blackburne, Liwei King |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Children often make letter reversal errors when first learning to read and write, even for letters whose reversed forms do not appear in normal print. However, the brain basis of such letter reversal in children learning to read is unknown. The present study compared the neuroanatomical correlates (via functional magnetic resonance imaging) and the electrophysiological correlates (via event-related potentials or ERPs) of this phenomenon in children, ages 5–12, relative to young adults. When viewing reversed letters relative to typically oriented letters, adults exhibited widespread occipital, parietal, and temporal lobe activations, including activation in the functionally localized visual word form area (VWFA) in left occipito-temporal cortex. Adults exhibited significantly greater activation than children in all of these regions; children only exhibited such activation in a limited frontal region. Similarly, on the P1 and N170 ERP components, adults exhibited significantly greater differences between typical and reversed letters than children, who failed to exhibit significant differences between typical and reversed letters. These findings indicate that adults distinguish typical and reversed letters in the early stages of specialized brain processing of print, but that children do not recognize this distinction during the early stages of processing. Specialized brain processes responsible for early stages of letter perception that distinguish between typical and reversed letters may develop slowly and remain immature even in older children who no longer produce letter reversals in their writing. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:11:17Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/88053 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:11:17Z |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/880532022-10-01T13:38:32Z Neural Correlates of Letter Reversal in Children and Adults Blackburne, Liwei King Eddy, Marianna D. Kalra, Priya Yee, Debbie Sinha, Pawan Gabrieli, John D. E. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT Gabrieli, John D. E. Eddy, Marianna D. Blackburne, Liwei King Yee, Debbie Sinha, Pawan Children often make letter reversal errors when first learning to read and write, even for letters whose reversed forms do not appear in normal print. However, the brain basis of such letter reversal in children learning to read is unknown. The present study compared the neuroanatomical correlates (via functional magnetic resonance imaging) and the electrophysiological correlates (via event-related potentials or ERPs) of this phenomenon in children, ages 5–12, relative to young adults. When viewing reversed letters relative to typically oriented letters, adults exhibited widespread occipital, parietal, and temporal lobe activations, including activation in the functionally localized visual word form area (VWFA) in left occipito-temporal cortex. Adults exhibited significantly greater activation than children in all of these regions; children only exhibited such activation in a limited frontal region. Similarly, on the P1 and N170 ERP components, adults exhibited significantly greater differences between typical and reversed letters than children, who failed to exhibit significant differences between typical and reversed letters. These findings indicate that adults distinguish typical and reversed letters in the early stages of specialized brain processing of print, but that children do not recognize this distinction during the early stages of processing. Specialized brain processes responsible for early stages of letter perception that distinguish between typical and reversed letters may develop slowly and remain immature even in older children who no longer produce letter reversals in their writing. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT Class of 1976 Funds for Dyslexia Research) National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (NIH grant UL1RR025758) Ellison Medical Foundation Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U.S.) (F32HD061180) National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Graduate research fellowship) 2014-06-20T17:38:41Z 2014-06-20T17:38:41Z 2014-05 2013-06 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 1932-6203 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/88053 Blackburne, Liwei King, Marianna D. Eddy, Priya Kalra, Debbie Yee, Pawan Sinha, and John D. E. Gabrieli. “Neural Correlates of Letter Reversal in Children and Adults.” Edited by Zhong-Lin Lu. PLoS ONE 9, no. 5 (May 23, 2014): e98386. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4429-0324 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1158-5692 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8259-7079 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2405-7875 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0098386 PLoS ONE Creative Commons Attribution http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf Public Library of Science Public Library of Science |
| spellingShingle | Blackburne, Liwei King Eddy, Marianna D. Kalra, Priya Yee, Debbie Sinha, Pawan Gabrieli, John D. E. Neural Correlates of Letter Reversal in Children and Adults |
| title | Neural Correlates of Letter Reversal in Children and Adults |
| title_full | Neural Correlates of Letter Reversal in Children and Adults |
| title_fullStr | Neural Correlates of Letter Reversal in Children and Adults |
| title_full_unstemmed | Neural Correlates of Letter Reversal in Children and Adults |
| title_short | Neural Correlates of Letter Reversal in Children and Adults |
| title_sort | neural correlates of letter reversal in children and adults |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/88053 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4429-0324 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1158-5692 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8259-7079 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2405-7875 |
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