Dyslexia is generally diagnosed in childhood and is characterised by poor literacy skills with associated phonological and perceptual problems. Compensated dyslexic readers are adult readers who have a documented history of childhood dyslexia but as adults can read and comprehend written text well. Uncompensated dyslexic readers are adults who similarly have a documented history of reading impairment but remain functionally reading-impaired all their lives. There is little understanding of the neurophysiological basis for how or why some children become compensated, while others do not, and there is little knowledge about neurophysiological changes that occur with remedial programs for reading disability. This paper will review research looking at reading remediation, particularly in the context of the underlying neurophysiology. 1. Brain Mechanisms and Reading Remediation: More Questions Than Answers Approximately 10% of children suffer a specific reading difficulty such as dyslexia [1]. Despite some residual deficits in core skills, (e.g., phonological processing), some of these individuals will ultimately learn good reading skills as adults (become compensated), while others will remain functionally reading-impaired all their lives (uncompensated) [2, 3]. On the last page of her seminal book on dyslexia, Snowling [2] concludes “The research agenda for the next decade must certainly be directed to the treatment resisters,… those poor readers who do not respond well to current intervention programs.” Yet despite the huge personal and social costs of dyslexia, virtually nothing is known about how or why some young dyslexic readers ultimately learn to read, while others remain functionally dyslexic their whole lives. The aim of the current review is to consider some of the research on reading remediation, particularly within the context of underlying brain mechanisms. A number of reviews have been conducted regarding the functional organisation of the normal reading network in the brain (refer to [4] for a recent review) and there is some research that has looked at compensatory brain mechanisms that develop as poor readers develop good reading skills [5]. However, a full understanding of how cortical networks develop in response to acquiring reading skills requires not only an understanding of what those networks look like but also an understanding of how those networks are functionally connected. Functional connectivity in language is well documented (e.g., [6]), and it is common for researchers to draw on this literature to also describe reading
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