Neuromagnetic responses related to the development of orthographic perception

As normal hearing and sighted children learn to read, they gain knowledge of associations between letters or words and their related sounds. Particular brain regions and processes are implicated in reading—reflected by measurable changes in brain activity—which develop as children progressively gain reading ability. By recording the magnetic fields produced by the brain, Dr. Anthony Herdman is identifying the changes that occur in brain activities when children begin to recognize letters. He is also investigating what happens in children’s brains when they combine sight and sound in order to learn letter-sound and word-sound pairs. His goal is to gain a better understanding of the changes in cerebral activity within in the developing brain over the course reading acquisition.