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Speech pathologist speaks on dyslexia and early phonological development

Written by Erika Rizo, Contributor to The Shorthorn

Thursday, 26 March 2009 08:27 PM

Harvard Graduate School of Education assistant professor Jenny Thomson discusses the links between rhythm sensitivity and dyslexia. The speaker series is part of the Southwest Center for Mind-Brian and Education. (The Shorthorn: Jacob Adkisson)

The symptoms and causes of dyslexia could be one and the same, a Harvard Graduate School of Education assistant professor told faculty and staff at the Planetarium Conference Room on Thursday.

Jenny Thomson, a speech pathologist who works with children who have speech and reading problems, said dyslexia is a core phonological deficit that stems from difficulty processing sounds of speech.

“One question that researchers have been struggling to answer for the past few decades is ‘Why are these children struggling?’ ” she said.

Thomson reviewed and presented new research that suggested certain music-related skills, like early rhythm sensitivity, may help increase the ability to predict reading progress in children.

She said phonics, which uses sounds and corresponding letters to teach reading and writing, helps 70 percent of children, but the other 30 percent resist treatment. It’s a problem at an earlier level of phonological development. She also said they have trouble pronouncing words.

Thomson worked with groups of children with and without dyslexia and tested different ways to measure beats in sounds. The children played with Winnie the Pooh and Tigger toys with sounds that varied in strength. Children with dyslexia were slow to hear the sounds.

Thomson said researchers are using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to measure brain activity during cognitive processing and to monitor things, like epilepsy, that cause changes in the brain.

“ERPs are telling us things that the behavioral data alone can not demonstrate,” she said. “They raise exciting new possibilities for examining brain plasticity and effects.”

ERPs help illustrate what takes place in the brain during this early age.

“There are still questions unanswered on how to help children,” she said. “Understanding dyslexia at the levels of mind, brain and education offer the brightest chances of offering effective help to those currently not benefiting from best practice.”

Robin Mayhew, who works for the Burleson ISD Dyslexia Services, said she was disappointed with the lecture.

“I was looking for more information — something usable,” she said. “It was good to some extent as far as theory, research for the good, but I can read research all day long.”

Education professor Marc Schwarz, the Southwest Center for Mind, Brain and Education director, said he enjoyed the presentation.

“Dr. Thomson offered a finer grain picture of some of the problems in solving to understand dyslexia,” he said. “We put students through this [research], because I believe we are helping students. It helps us to develop a better, clear picture.”

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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 28 April 2009 06:23 PM )

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