Here’s an interesting article from www.medicalnewstoday.com on new studies of the dyslexic brain. The prevailing theory of dyslexia is called the “magoncellular hypothesis” or belief that the neuron involved in processing fast visual information is responsible for dyslexia.

But researchers are challenging that, saying that auditory processing in noise and the ability to filter out and ignore distractions is much more likely a culprit. Three studies, conducted by the same team of researchers (neuroscientists and psychologists) point to people with dyslexia has having shaky mental categories for language sounds and that this problem affects all areas of perception.

Many still see dyslexia as the condition where children mix up their letters (which is one of many possible symptoms), but it more than that.

The current accepted definition of dyslexia is:

A specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction.

Zhong-Lin Lu, one of the neuroscientists conducting these studies believes that training children at risk for dyslexia (those with week speech perception) in noisy environments may help those at greater risk of dyslexia.

In the conclusion of their study in Psychological Science, these researchers speculate that the deficit in noise exclusion may have something to do with abnormal levels of GABA.