Dr. Wang attended the 2016 Cognitive Neuroscience Conference held in New York City (NYC) from April 1-5, 2016. Her post’s title is “Development of tract-specific white matter pathways during early reading development in at-risk children and typical controls”. The research findings show white matter alterations and atypical lateralization of the arcuate fasciculus at the prereading stage in children with a family history of dyslexia versus those without a family history of dyslexia.
Moreover, we demonstrate faster white matter development in subsequent good versus poor readers and a positive association between white matter maturation and reading development using a longitudinal design. Additionally, the combination of white matter maturation, familial risk and psychometric measures best predicted later reading abilities. Furthermore, within FHD+ children, subsequent good readers exhibited faster white matter development in the right superior longitudinal fasciculus compared to subsequent poor readers, suggesting a compensatory mechanism. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of white matter pathway maturation in the development of typical and atypical reading skills.
