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Effects of Reading and Writing on Cerebral Laterality in Good Readers and Children with Dyslexia

John R. Kershner received his undergraduate degree from Kutztown University, his MS from Bucknell University, and his PhD from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, which is affiliated with the University of Toronto. Currently, he is a psychologist and professor, with research interests in the neuropsychology of learning disabilities and neurocognitive relationships. Address: John R. Kershner. Department of Instruction and Special Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 252 Bloor St. West, Toronto, Ontario M5S lV6, Canada.

Ronald W. Stringer

Ronald W. Stringer received his MA from the University of Toronto (O.I.S.E.) and is currently a PhD student of the Centre for Applied Cognitive Science at O.I.S.E. His research interests include the neuropsychological aspects of reading.

The present study evaluated the idea that the hemisphere-specific cognitive demands of reading and writing may induce task-specific maladaptive patterns of language lateralization in children with dyslexia. Situation-specific lateralization was examined in a repeated measures design under three dichotic listening conditions: baseline, concurrent reading, and concurrent writing. Twelve males with phonological dyslexia, 8 to 12 years old, were compared to 12 age-matched and 12 younger reading-matched good readers. Lateralization patterns were examined for condition-specific relationships to pseudoword decoding, word recognition, reading comprehension, spelling, and arithmetic. The results show that dyslexia is not related to incomplete lateralization or to a failure to inhibit verbal processing in the right hemisphere during reading and writing. Reading increased the lateralization of the children with dyslexia, which had a negative relation to arithmetic; writing caused a decrease in lateralization, which was linked specifically to deficits in phonological decoding and visual word recognition. The results suggest that children with dyslexia suffer from a selective linguistic vulnerability to left-hemisphere interference from the idiosyncratic attentional and processing demands of particular school tasks. Dyslexia is a much more dynamic and environmentally sensitive disorder than previously thought.

Journal of Learning Disabilities, Vol. 24, No. 9, 560-567 (1991)
DOI: 10.1177/002221949102400908


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