the following article caught my eye:
Program Proves Promising for Dyslexic Kids
When dyslexic children took part in a program to learn better reading skills, their brains began functioning more like the brains of non-dyslexic children, a new study reports.
Dyslexia, a reading and language disability, affects between 5 percent and 10 percent of the population.
Sometimes called “word blindness,” it is associated with reduced brain activity in a portion of the left half of the brain.
Researchers working at Stanford University report in today’s issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they used magnetic resonance imaging to scan the brains of 20 dyslexic children ages 8 to 12 as well as a dozen non-dyslexic children. The children were asked to perform simple rhyming exercises at the time.
The dyslexic children then took part in an eight-week program of intensive training designed to help them understand the rapidly changing sounds that are the building blocks of language.
Their reading skills improved in a number of tests, the researchers said. In addition, the active area of their brains changed, becoming much more like that of good readers.
“We see that the brains of these children are remarkably plastic and adaptive, and it makes us hopeful that the best language intervention programs in the future can alter the brains in fundamentally helpful ways,” said John Gabrieli, a Stanford psychology professor.
so I went to the source at:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0030098100v1.pdf
The program they used was 8 weeks of Fast Forward!! Interesting!
I saw this this a.m. too— thanks for doing the research and finding the link!