title: Integrating MRI brain imaging studies of pre-reading children with current theories of developmental dyslexia: A review and quantitative meta-analysis.
abstract: The neurobiological substrates that cause people with dyslexia to experience difficulty in acquiring accurate and fluent reading skills are still largely unknown. Although structural and functional brain anomalies associated with dyslexia have been reported in adults and school-age children, these anomalies may represent differences in reading experience rather than the etiology of dyslexia. Conducting MRI studies of pre-readers at risk for dyslexia is one approach that enables us to identify brain alterations that exist before differences in reading experience emerge. The current review summarizes MRI studies that examine brain differences associated with risk for dyslexia in children before reading instruction and meta-analyzes these studies. In order to link these findings with current etiological theories of dyslexia, we focus on studies that take a modular perspective rather than a network approach. Although some of the observed differences in pre-readers at risk for dyslexia may still be shaped by language experiences during the first years of life, such studies underscore the existence of reading-related brain anomalies prior to reading onset and could eventually lead to earlier and more precise diagnosis and treatment of dyslexia.
authors.affiliation: University of California San Francisco, Department of Psychiatry and Weill Institute for Neurosciences, 401 Parnassus Ave., San Francisco CA 94143, USA; KU Leuven, Department of Psychology and Educational Science, L. Vanderkelenstraat 32, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Maaike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vandermosten
authors.affiliation: University of California San Francisco, Department of Psychiatry and Weill Institute for Neurosciences, 401 Parnassus Ave., San Francisco CA 94143, USA; Haskins Laboratories, 300 George St. #900, New Haven CT 06511, USA; Keio University School of Medicine, Department of Neuropsychiatry, 35 Shinanomachi, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-8582, Japan.
authors.forename: Fumiko
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Hoeft
authors.affiliation: Northwestern University, Roxelyn & Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, 2240 Campus Dr., Evanston IL 60208, USA.
authors.forename: Elizabeth S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Norton