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- abstract below
- a PowerPoint presentation is available on the conference CD.
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Brain-Based Assessment and Instructional Interventions: Understanding and Changing the Constraints in Functional Reading and Writing Systems

Virginia Berninger

University of Washington, USA vwb@u.washington.edu

Abstract

A cognitive neuroscience approach to psychometric assessment of the functional reading system and the functional writing system in children and adults will be presented. A test battery, which uses subtests from the WISC-III or WAIS-R, WIAT-II, PAL, CTOPP, TOWRE, GORT3, WRAT3, WJ-R, Delis-Kaplan, and University of Washington Morphological Awareness Battery, will be described; and the theoretical rationale for using each subtest will be explained from a neuroscience perspective. This battery is given in a family genetics study of dyslexia, which began in 1995. Recent phenotype findings, based on probands (n = 122) and affected parents (n = 200) assessed over a two-year period, will be reported that are relevant to developmental and gender differences in reading and writing disability and the working memory architecture of the brain. Results of related structural and functional brain imaging studies of child dyslexics will also be presented and interpreted in light of the flexible working memory architecture of the reading brain and the writing brain. Some of these studies imaged dyslexics and age- and IQ-matched good readers or spellers before and after the dyslexics received instructional treatment. Emphasis will be placed on how the phonological, morphological, and orthographic word-form areas, the cerebellum and inferior frontal gyrus, and the supervisory attentional and other executive systems constrain reading and writing development in dyslexia. At this stage of investigating nature-nurture interactions in dyslexia, many small theories of the brain’s complex, multi-level architecture (Minsky, 1986) are needed. Theories for which there is scientific evidence should be retained even if they do not fit neatly with other evidence-based theories of brain-behavior relationships. Eventually the puzzle pieces may fit, and Churchland’s (1986) prediction may come true that psychologists will revise their understanding of what their behavioral measures really assess. Fitting the pieces together will involve a shift from simple linear causal mechanisms to complex models of brain constraints that interact with the instructional environment in dynamic ways that change over development. Psychometric testing, brain imaging, and instructional intervention will play a role in this paradigm shift.

Disclaimer: all the abstracts presented here have satisfied the academic committee as appropriate for presentation at an international conference. However, the material reflects the views of the authors, not necessarily those of the academic committee or the BDA. No endorsement of any approach, product or service is intended or implied.

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