IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v431y2004i7004d10.1038_nature02865.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Biological abnormality of impaired reading is constrained by culture

Author

Listed:
  • Wai Ting Siok

    (University of Hong Kong)

  • Charles A. Perfetti

    (University of Pittsburgh)

  • Zhen Jin

    (Beijing 306 Hospital)

  • Li Hai Tan

    (University of Hong Kong
    National Institute of Mental Health, NIH)

Abstract

Developmental dyslexia is characterized by a severe reading problem in people who have normal intelligence and schooling1,2,3. Impaired reading of alphabetic scripts is associated with dysfunction of left temporoparietal brain regions2,3,4,5. These regions perform phonemic analysis and conversion of written symbols to phonological units of speech (grapheme-to-phoneme conversion); two central cognitive processes that mediate reading acquisition6,7. Furthermore, it has been assumed that, in contrast to cultural diversities, dyslexia in different languages has a universal biological origin1,8. Here we show using functional magnetic resonance imaging with reading-impaired Chinese children and associated controls, that functional disruption of the left middle frontal gyrus is associated with impaired reading of the Chinese language (a logographic rather than alphabetic writing system). Reading impairment in Chinese is manifested by two deficits: one relating to the conversion of graphic form (orthography) to syllable, and the other concerning orthography-to-semantics mapping. Both of these processes are critically mediated by the left middle frontal gyrus, which functions as a centre for fluent Chinese reading9,10,11 that coordinates and integrates various information about written characters in verbal and spatial working memory. This finding provides an insight into the fundamental pathophysiology of dyslexia by suggesting that rather than having a universal origin, the biological abnormality of impaired reading is dependent on culture.

Suggested Citation

  • Wai Ting Siok & Charles A. Perfetti & Zhen Jin & Li Hai Tan, 2004. "Biological abnormality of impaired reading is constrained by culture," Nature, Nature, vol. 431(7004), pages 71-76, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:431:y:2004:i:7004:d:10.1038_nature02865
    DOI: 10.1038/nature02865
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02865
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature02865?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fan Cao & Charles A Perfetti, 2016. "Neural Signatures of the Reading-Writing Connection: Greater Involvement of Writing in Chinese Reading than English Reading," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(12), pages 1-23, December.
    2. Xiaojuan Wang & Jianfeng Yang & Jie Yang & W Einar Mencl & Hua Shu & Jason David Zevin, 2015. "Language Differences in the Brain Network for Reading in Naturalistic Story Reading and Lexical Decision," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(5), pages 1-25, May.
    3. Yuhang Lin & Xuanzhi Zhang & Qingjun Huang & Laiwen Lv & Anyan Huang & Ai Li & Kusheng Wu & Yanhong Huang, 2020. "The Prevalence of Dyslexia in Primary School Children and Their Chinese Literacy Assessment in Shantou, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(19), pages 1-12, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:431:y:2004:i:7004:d:10.1038_nature02865. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.