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arioch36
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 3589
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 Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 4:37 am Post subject: Where (and who) you teach does make a difference |
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080408/ap_on_he_me/dyslexic_differences;_ylt=AnMsB0lvj3792q7gqlBl.z4iANEA
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| Study: Dyslexia differs by language |
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| WASHINGTON - Dyslexia affects different parts of children's brains depending on whether they are raised reading English or Chinese. That finding, reported in Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, means that therapists may need to seek different methods of assisting dyslexic children from different cultures |
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A while back there was the U of Michigan article that showed that
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In a separate paper, published two years ago, University of Michigan researchers reported that Asians and North Americans see the world differently.
Shown a photograph, North American students of European background paid more attention to the object in the foreground of a scene, while students from China spent more time studying the background and taking in the whole scene. |
This is just another study that shows there really is a difference in how the brain functions, how the mind learns, even how we view the world
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| Study: Dyslexia differs by language |
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WASHINGTON - Dyslexia affects different parts of children's brains depending on whether they are raised reading English or Chinese. That finding, reported in Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, means that therapists may need to seek different methods of assisting dyslexic children from different cultures.
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"This finding was very surprising to us. We had not ever thought that dyslexics' brains are different for children who read in English and Chinese," said lead author Li-Hai Tan, a professor of linguistics and brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Hong Kong. "Our finding yields neurobiological clues to the cause of dyslexia."
Millions of children worldwide are affected by dyslexia, a language-based learning disability that can include problems in reading, spelling, writing and pronouncing words. The International Dyslexia Association says there is no consensus on the exact number because not all children are screened, but estimates range from 8 percent to 15 percent of students.
Reading an alphabetic language like English requires different skills than reading Chinese, which relies less on sound representation, instead using symbols to represent words.
Past studies have suggested that the brain may use different networks of neurons in different languages, but none has suggested a difference in the structural parts of the brain involved, Tan explained.
Tan's research group studied the brains of students raised reading Chinese, using functional magnetic resonance imaging. They then compared those findings with similar studies of the brains of students raised reading English.
Guinevere F. Eden, director of the Center for the Study of Learning at Georgetown University in Washington, said the process of becoming a skilled reader changes the brain.
"Becoming a reader is a fairly dramatic process for the brain," explained Eden, who was not part of Tan's research team on this paper.
For children, learning to read is culturally important but is not really natural, Eden said, so when the brain orients toward a different writing system it copes with it differently.
For example, English-speaking children learn the sounds of letters and how to combine them into words, while Chinese youngsters memorize hundreds of symbols which represent words.
"The implication here is that when we see a reading disability, we see it in different parts of the brain depending on the writing system that the child is born into," Eden said.
That means, "we cannot just assume that any dyslexic child is going to be helped by the same kind of intervention," she said in a telephone interview.
Tan said the new findings suggest that treating Chinese speakers with dyslexia may use working memory tasks and tests relating to sensor-motor skills, while current treatments of English dyslexia focus on letter-sound conversions and sound awareness.
He said the underlying cause of brain structure abnormalities in dyslexia is currently unknown.
"Previous genetic studies suggest that malformations of brain development are associated with mutations of several genes and that developmental dyslexia has a genetic basis," he said in an interview via e-mail.
"We speculate that different genes may be involved in dyslexia in Chinese and English readers. In this respect, our brain-mapping findings can assist in the search for candidate genes that cause dyslexia," Tan said.
In their paper, the researchers noted that imaging studies of the brains of dyslexic children using alphabetic languages like English have identified unusual function and structure in the left temporo-parietal areas, thought to be involved in letter-to-sound conversions in reading; left middle-superior temporal cortex, thought to be involved in speech sound analysis, and the left inferior temporo-occipital gyrus, which may function as a quick word-form recognition system.
When they performed similar imaging studies on dyslexic Chinese youngsters, on the other hand, they found disruption in a different area, the left middle frontal gyrus region.
The study was funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the Hong Kong Research Grants Council and the University of Hong Kong.
In a separate paper, published two years ago, University of Michigan researchers reported that Asians and North Americans see the world differently.
Shown a photograph, North American students of European background paid more attention to the object in the foreground of a scene, while students from China spent more time studying the background and taking in the whole scene. |
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Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 4124
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| Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 9:23 am Post subject: |
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In a separate paper, published two years ago, University of Michigan researchers reported that Asians and North Americans see the world differently.
Shown a photograph, North American students of European background paid more attention to the object in the foreground of a scene, while students from China spent more time studying the background and taking in the whole scene |
Pretty awful reporting. I am pretty sure the researchers at the University of Michigan, did not say or suggest that 'Asians and North Americans see the world differently". What they probably said was that there was a difference in the way North American students of 'European background' (whatever that is) studied the photographs they were shown to the manner students who came from China did. Rather a different proposition.
Were the research findings the results of the students beng immigrants? Comparisons would need to be made with immigrant students from other cultures including Europe, with USians of Chinese extraction, with non-students, with all of these in the country of origin, with North Americans of European origin studying as immigrant students in other cultures, and so on.
Then there is the fact that the report doesn't state what the statisitical difference was, whether there was a shift between all members of the group, and whether the mean difference between the two groups was greater or lesser than the mean difference between any two ramdom individuals within the group.
There is one thing that doesn't seem to change between cultures, and that is the crass incompetence of newspaper reporters when talking about scientific research.
As for the finding that deciphering a ideoraphic writing system might present different problems to deciphering a sound-based alhabetical one, excuse me if I feel underwhelmed.
Last edited by Stephen Jones on Wed Apr 09, 2008 4:34 am; edited 1 time in total |
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arioch36
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 3589
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| Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 11:24 am Post subject: |
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| Obviously effected you enough that you felt a need to comment. |
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Chancellor
Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 1337
Location: Ji'an, China - if you're willing to send me cigars, I accept donations :)
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| Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 2:18 pm Post subject: |
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| arioch36 wrote: |
| Obviously effected you enough that you felt a need to comment. |
Well, I'm not sure how much it effected him but it very likely affected him sufficiently to lead him to comment.
I think this sentence is a key point in the article: "Reading an alphabetic language like English requires different skills than reading Chinese, which relies less on sound representation, instead using symbols to represent words." |
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naturegirl321
Joined: 04 May 2003
Posts: 9041
Location: home sweet home
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| Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 12:48 am Post subject: |
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| I believe it, Peruvian students, children , adults, etc are hard to teach. ASians are different than Peruvians. But each culture has things that are different. |
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Justin Trullinger
Joined: 28 Jan 2005
Posts: 3110
Location: Seoul, South Korea and Myanmar for a bit
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| Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 4:57 pm Post subject: |
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| I believe it, Peruvian students, children , adults, etc are hard to teach. |
Funny, so are Ecuadorians.  And Canadians, and the Spanish, and the French, and Italians...
All hard in different ways, mind, but...
Best,
Justin |
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MO39
Joined: 28 Jan 2004
Posts: 1970
Location: El ombligo de la Rep�blica Mexicana
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| Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 5:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Justin Trullinger wrote: |
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| I believe it, Peruvian students, children , adults, etc are hard to teach. |
Funny, so are Ecuadorians. And Canadians, and the Spanish, and the French, and Italians...
All hard in different ways, mind, but...
Best,
Justin |
Mexicans can be hard to teach, except for my handful of wonderful adult students, of course! |
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SueH
Joined: 01 Feb 2003
Posts: 1022
Location: Northern Italy
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| Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 6:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Frankly any research into dyslexia and how it varies according to language is to be welcome. I once had an arabic speaker in my UK ESOL class who was completely illiterate, both in L1 and in English. He had problems recognising letters and even abstract patterns/sequences, but when I sought help I couldn't find any material/research to help me. |
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JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
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| Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 1:08 am Post subject: |
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| Stephen Jones, your comment is great. Nicholas Taleb professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in "The Black Swan" makes fun of the guy who reads many newspapers and magazines. He believes that reading newspapers can make you less wise. |
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gaijinalways
Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 2279
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| Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 3:01 am Post subject: |
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The article seems to raise the point that cultural habits imparted from language will affect the way medical ailments will affect us, and hence may influence the treatment needed for successful recovery and/or reducing the medical ailment's influence.
This doesn't seem so far fetched an idea, especially when it comes to pattern recognition, including languages, which dyslexia specifically affects.
As to shoddy reporting, well that's another matter. |
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Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 4124
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| Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 7:09 am Post subject: |
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I've read the Black Swan. Could have been shorter.
Mark Lieberman on Language Log is a particularly outspoken critic of shoddy science reporting, but even the generally awful BBC science sections don't produce such cringe-making overgeneralizations as this news report does. |
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