Dyslexia in a French-Spanish bilingual girl: behavioural and neural modulations following a visual attention span intervention.
Details
Serval ID
serval:BIB_D9167098FBEB
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Publication sub-type
Case report (case report): feedback on an observation with a short commentary.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Dyslexia in a French-Spanish bilingual girl: behavioural and neural modulations following a visual attention span intervention.
Journal
Cortex
ISSN
1973-8102 (Electronic)
ISSN-L
0010-9452
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2014
Volume
53
Pages
120-145
Language
english
Notes
Publication types: Case Reports ; Journal Article ; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Abstract
We report the case study of a French-Spanish bilingual dyslexic girl, MP, who exhibited a severe visual attention (VA) span deficit but preserved phonological skills. Behavioural investigation showed a severe reduction of reading speed for both single items (words and pseudo-words) and texts in the two languages. However, performance was more affected in French than in Spanish. MP was administered an intensive VA span intervention programme. Pre-post intervention comparison revealed a positive effect of intervention on her VA span abilities. The intervention further transferred to reading. It primarily resulted in faster identification of the regular and irregular words in French. The effect of intervention was rather modest in Spanish that only showed a tendency for faster word reading. Text reading improved in the two languages with a stronger effect in French but pseudo-word reading did not improve in either French or Spanish. The overall results suggest that VA span intervention may primarily enhance the fast global reading procedure, with stronger effects in French than in Spanish. MP underwent two fMRI sessions to explore her brain activations before and after VA span training. Prior to the intervention, fMRI assessment showed that the striate and extrastriate visual cortices alone were activated but none of the regions typically involved in VA span. Post-training fMRI revealed increased activation of the superior and inferior parietal cortices. Comparison of pre- and post-training activations revealed significant activation increase of the superior parietal lobes (BA 7) bilaterally. Thus, we show that a specific VA span intervention not only modulates reading performance but further results in increased brain activity within the superior parietal lobes known to housing VA span abilities. Furthermore, positive effects of VA span intervention on reading suggest that the ability to process multiple visual elements simultaneously is one cause of successful reading acquisition.
Keywords
Attention/physiology, Child, Cognitive Therapy/methods, Dyslexia/physiopathology, Dyslexia/psychology, Female, Humans, Language, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Multilingualism, Neurologic Examination, Neuropsychological Tests, Reading, Visual Cortex/physiopathology, Visual Perception/physiology
Pubmed
Web of science
Create date
23/05/2014 17:17
Last modification date
20/08/2019 15:58