Researchers from MIT have discovered a link between the size of a language-processing area of the brain and poor pre-reading skills in kindergartners. This finding, coupled with an MRI technique, could lead the way for an earlier dyslexia diagnosis.

Share on Pinterest Diagnosis of dyslexia may soon be done with a brain scan before children begin to read.

The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, relies on previous research showing that adults with poor reading skills have a smaller, less organized arcuate fasciculus.

According to researchers, this structure of the brain connects two areas integral to communicating: Broca’s area, involved in speech production, and Wernicke’s area, involved in understanding both written and spoken language.

Until this recent study, it was unknown whether the differences in the arcuate fasciculus were the cause of reading difficulties or the result of little reading experience.

Part of a larger effort that analyzes 1,000 children at schools in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the study from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) involved researchers assessing children at the start of kindergarten for pre-reading sounds. This gave them an idea of where each child’s pre-reading skills lay.

Following this assessment, the researchers then invited some of the children to MIT for brain scans that use a technique called diffusion-weighted imaging, a MRI (magnetic resonance imaging).

The study published in the Journal of Neuroscience utilizes brain scans from 40 children.