title: An fMRI study of nonverbally gifted reading disabled adults: has deficit compensation effected gifted potential?
abstract: Neuroscience has advanced our understanding of the neurological basis of reading disability (RD). Yet, no functional imaging work has been reported on the twice-exceptional dyslexic: individuals exhibiting both non-verbal-giftedness and RD. We compared groups of reading-disabled (RD), non-verbally-gifted (G), non-verbally-gifted-RD (GRD), and control (C) adults on validated word-rhyming and spatial visualization fMRI tasks, and standardized psychometric tests, to ascertain if the neurological functioning of GRD subjects was similar to that of typical RD or G subjects, or perhaps some unique RD subtype. Results demonstrate that GRD adults resemble non-gifted RD adults in performance on paper-and-pencil reading, math and spatial tests, and in patterns of functional activation during rhyming and spatial processing. Data are consistent with what may be a shared etiology of RD and giftedness in GRD individuals that yields a lifespan interaction with reading compensation effects, modifying how their adult brain processes text and spatial stimuli.
authors.affiliation: Psychological Sciences, University of California Merced Merced, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Jeffrey W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Gilger
authors.forename: Thomas M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Talavage
authors.forename: Olumide A
authors.initials: OA
authors.lastname: Olulade
keywords: giftedness; neuroimaging; reading disability; spatial visualization; twice-exceptional