The following information is summarized from an article from the American Psychological Association (APA). The link will be at the end of the article.
What is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in its origin. It is characterized by difficulties in accurate or fluent word recognition. Problems that stem form this would be reading comprehension, communication and impeding the growth of the word vocabulary. This makes it very difficult for children with dyslexia to succeed academically, they have lower high school graduation rates and higher rates of unemployment in the future. It affects 13-14% of the school aged population (a relatively big number that sometimes goes unrecognized).
Theories highlighting the neurobiological problem with dyslexia:
Abnormal brain connections - The number one problem appears to be that children with dyslexia have abnormal connections between various brain regions. This is done by a functional MRI machine, which essentially follows the blood flow between brain parts during activities (i.e. speaking, or reading). These children then have to compensate by finding an alternate route for both brain segments to communicate. This then delays the reading process, thus frustrating the children further.
Decreased activity in specific brain regions - Children with dyslexia have been shown to have decreased acitvity in the language zone of the brain (the left temporoparietal region). Below is an example of how a child without dyslexia shows up on fMRI:
Video games?
A group of scientists at the university of California, San Francisco came up with this game called Fast Forword. Essentially it is a fun cross-training platform that helps the children with attention, reading, comprehension, and linguistics. All these are essential tools for succeeding academically. The beautiful thing is it does in a way that encourages the children to keep trying, having rewarding them for successful efforts and challenging them further the next day. An example of one of the mini-games is a child earns points by pointing and distinguishing between the sounds "pa" and "ba." When the child masters the task , they move and get a more difficult challenge the next day. There are multiple different games that target different areas of development, but it is a very exciting and novel way to help these children.
Another study has shown that action packed video games can help dyslexic children deal with attention deficit problems. The kids constantly have to shift attention between sight and sound and thus it both helps with their reaction time and attention span. Pretty cool stuff!
At the end of the day, video games might not be as bad as we though they were for our kids. Actually, I am in medical school and I myself used to and still play video games. However, everything in moderation haha! And with that ill leave you with my favorite Italian plumber :)
Link to the article:
http://www.apa.org/action/resources/research-in-action/dyslexia.aspx
