Title: Are Childhood Reading and Math Disabilities Related? Researcher Studies Potential Connection
Georgetown researcher Guinevere Eden has embarked on a study to determine if childhood dyscalculia, a math disability, and dyslexia, a reading disability, are linked.
“I believe this research will provide a critical piece to this puzzle, because while we have already put together a number of pieces, the big picture isn’t yet clear,” says Eden, director of the Center for the Study of Learning at Georgetown University Medical Center.
She holds a $1.7 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant (#1743521) for the work.
Lesser-Known Disability
More children suffer from dyscalculia than from dyslexia, but the latter disability has gotten far more attention. Dyslexia affects 5 to 12 percent of children, while dyscalculia affects 6 to 14 percent.
The National Institutes of Health has defined dyscalculia as a difficulty acquiring basic arithmetic skills that is not explained by low intelligence or inadequate schooling.
This month, Eden began a four-year study that examines brain function in children with a math disability and compares them with those who have a reading disability, as well as those with math and reading disabilities combined.
Interventional Effects
Eden was the senior author of a 2011 study published in NeuroImage, which examined changes in gray matter volume following intensive reading intervention in children with dyslexia.
The study showed that reading improvements resulting from interventions are accompanied by increases in brain gray matter, and that behavioral and structural brain changes were maintained after the interventions stopped.
Researchers will use sophisticated brain imaging technology in the new study to examine whether intensive reading interventions lead to changes in brain usage and improvement in arithmetic, even in children with diagnosed dyscalculia.
The tutoring sessions for the children begin with six-hour summer camps, every day of the week, for six weeks. The intervention is delivered by tutors, funded by the NSF award, and takes place at local schools.
Advancing Frontiers
“It makes sense that the NSF is interested in this work because STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and math – rely on understanding numerical concepts as well as written materials for learning,” Eden says. “We want to advance the scientific frontiers of both reading and math disabilities to understand the most effective and efficient intervention for all affected children.”
Eden has studied learning disabilities at Georgetown since 1996, looking at how the brain operates in children and adults with these challenges. Her work has progressively revealed the roots of both reading and math disabilities.
A 2014 study, also in NeuroImage, was the first to identify patterns of brain activity that link dyslexia to difficulty with math, even though some of the study’s participants did not meet the criteria for a formal math disability.
“We can see from imaging studies that children with dyslexia use the brain in a different way to do math problems,” Eden says. “They have trouble with addition because it relies on some of the same brain areas that processreading.”
Eden is also in the third year ofgrant from the National Institute of Health to examine brain images of children with math and reading difficulties.