Brain that causes a person to suffer from dyslexia?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion centers around the neurological basis of dyslexia, exploring potential brain differences and the implications of these variations. Participants share personal experiences and insights related to dyslexia, its complexities, and its evolutionary context.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants inquire about the specific brain differences that may cause dyslexia, noting that there are subtle wiring differences, but details remain unclear.
  • One participant shares a personal account of their dyslexia and mentions a neurologist's observation of unusual neuron orientation in a dyslexic brain, although this has not been widely referenced.
  • Another participant discusses their wife's experience with spelling difficulties, contrasting it with her performance in games like Scrabble, suggesting a complexity in how dyslexia manifests.
  • Some participants propose an evolutionary perspective, suggesting that dyslexia may not indicate a broken brain but rather a different adaptation that reflects the relatively recent development of reading and writing skills.
  • There is mention of the historical context of reading and writing, indicating that these skills are not necessarily aligned with human evolutionary adaptations.
  • Links to external resources are provided for further exploration of the topic.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a range of views on the nature of dyslexia, with no consensus on the underlying neurological mechanisms or the implications of these differences. The discussion remains unresolved regarding the specifics of brain function in dyslexia.

Contextual Notes

Some claims about brain structure and function are based on anecdotal evidence or personal experiences, and there is a lack of comprehensive research cited to support all points raised. The discussion reflects varying levels of familiarity with the scientific literature on dyslexia.

Forestman
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What is wrong in the brain that causes a person to suffer from dyslexica?
 
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Dyslexia.

It's fairly complex I think. Have you looked at the wiki article? Might get you started.
 


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexia

I thought you guys might want to look at this too. I have an interest in dyslexia because I have it, and growing up in school was very hard. It was even predicted by the doctors that diagnosed me that I would never read past and elementary level. While I can read fine now, I still have a spelling problem, but luckily my computer has a spell check on it.
 


It can be complex. My wife has trouble spelling when she's writing things out by hand, but her spelling is just fine when we play Scrabble. See "Dysgraphia". I don't know why having wooden letter-tiles to spell with is so much easier for her than hand-writing, but the difference is dramatic. She's a voracious reader, mostly mystery novels, and plows through books constantly, so reading and comprehension are no problem.
 


turbo-1 said:
I don't know why having wooden letter-tiles to spell with is so much easier for her than hand-writing, but the difference is dramatic.
Well, if in no other way but speed, they're like night and day.
 


Forestman said:
What is wrong in the brain that causes a person to suffer from dyslexica?

Million dollar question.

Looks like there are some subtle differences in wiring, but so far nobody knows details.
 


Physics people aren't experts on language. I've actually been looking for some other forum to discuss my grievances with the english language language. If anyone sees one, let me know. All the forums I found were for "English as a second language".
 


flatmaster said:
Physics people aren't experts on language. I've actually been looking for some other forum to discuss my grievances with the english language language. If anyone sees one, let me know. All the forums I found were for "English as a second language".
Here's a blog. That might get you started.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/
 


Forestman said:
What is wrong in the brain that causes a person to suffer from dyslexica?

Many years ago I read a book by Neurologist Wilder Pennfield in which he reported that when he was practicing staining brain slices for viewing under a microscope samples of a dyslexic brain came in. He stained them and had a look and saw that the neurons were oriented in a strange swirled pattern. (This only pertained to some small part of the left hemisphere, not the whole brain.)

I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else, but I haven't ever made too much of an effort to research dyslexia.
 
  • #10


zoobyshoe said:
I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else, but I haven't ever made too much of an effort to research dyslexia.

Sounds interesting, but I have not heard about it as well - and I suppose it will came out when my wife was working at Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology. She was helping find a test and control group using psychological tests, so she was not directly involved in the research, but just out of curiosity she has attended all seminars in her group. No known anatomical aberrances were mentioned.
 
  • #11


Thanks DaveC, I'll look into that.
 
  • #12


dave79 said:
nothing...its an evolutionery prosess whitch stops a part of your brain from working so it rerouts throw an higher part of the brain...its a gift...dont worry about it

If you are taking an evolutionary view (which is good to counter the idea that the dyslexic brain is necessarily wrong or broken) then remember that the human brain and body have at least 150,000 years of fine-tuned evolution for being able to speak, then someone invented reading, writing and 'rithmetic around 4000 years ago. And even then, only a small percentage of the world population were employing these strange skills.

The habit of reading silently in the head, or writing at speed, are even more recent. In the middleages, scholars who could read without speaking aloud were viewed with some suspicion.

So we are talking about a strange and unnatural skill that humans can learn, but are not specifically adapted for. A section of any human population would struggle because they might be at the tail end of a normal distribution for basic spoken language skills like syllabic decoding (hearing the individual phonemic components of rapid speech - the phonological model of dyslexia).

By the same token, there would be no reason to see dyslexia as some special neural gift. Though if you struggle in some areas of life, you may be inclined to throw your energies into others.
 

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