The ability to read is an essential skill of modern societies to exchange knowledge and promote human progress. In addition, other cognitive abilities are also learned through reading. But it is estimated that 10% of the world's population has dyslexia, a specific learning disorder that affects the reading process and is not due to intellectual, hearing or vision problems, and goes far beyond confusing a letter. with other. One in ten people has dyslexia and most don't know it.
Sufferers have difficulty learning to identify and relate speech sounds to letters and words (decoding). For this reason, people with dyslexia have problems reading fluently and without errors, and they may have problems with reading comprehension, spelling and writing. These are the reasons why boys and girls who suffer from it often find it difficult to reach the different stages of reading-writing learning development with the same speed and correctness as the majority of their peers. But it happens that, on many occasions, dyslexia is confused with a lack of interest or a delay in the reading process that will normalize with the passage of time and the pace of learning. Some conclusions that can lead the little ones to suffer problems of school failure.
Yes, dyslexia is a permanent neurobiological-based disorder that has no cure, but early evaluation and intervention are decisive and necessary, to the point that the majority of children with dyslexia can do well in school. if they are diagnosed and have the appropriate support programs. Therefore, the discovery of early biomarkers is crucial, since early diagnosis would allow faster intervention and prevent children from suffering from not knowing what is happening to them. Something that, without research, will not be possible.
For this reason, the ”la Caixa” Foundation supports the work carried out by the team led by Dr. Manuel Carreiras, neuroscientist specialized in reading and scientific director of the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain
Dyslexia is an understudied developmental disorder. Much of the research has focused on the cerebral cortex, a region involved in processes such as perception, thinking, imagination and decision-making. The project promoted by Carreiras, in which 2,000 students from the Basque Country between 9 and 16 years old have participated, focuses on analyzing the neuronal circuits of another brain structure, the thalamus, a large structure located at the base of the brain that filters sensory stimuli. that are transmitted to the cerebral cortex, the main seat of consciousness and reasoning.
It depends on the thalamus, therefore, that the letters that children read or the phonemes they hear correctly access the cortex. And, according to Carreiras' hypothesis, the majority of cases of dyslexia could originate from a malfunction of the thalamus as a sensory filter. This new approach could explain why there are people with reading difficulties.
Dr. Juan Luis Luque, professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Speech Therapy at the University of Malaga (UMA) and scientific coordinator of the Leeduca research group, also wants to contribute his part to research on dyslexia. For this reason, he has created a Neuroscience and Education Laboratory, where psychologists, speech therapists and engineers collaborate to advance in the prediction of reading learning difficulties; and he leads the Leeduca project with the aim of implementing a comprehensive intervention model for reading learning difficulties, which includes dynamic evaluation and intervention instruments from the pre-reading stage to adolescence.
What do these initiatives consist of? What progress has been achieved? These questions will be answered on November 16, 2023, at 7 p.m., in the online debate “One in ten people has dyslexia and the majority do not know it”, the two researchers leading their respective projects. This activity is part of a cycle of conversations promoted by the ”la Caixa” Foundation with the aim of highlighting the work of research and health professionals, and of serving as a meeting point between society and the scientific community. .
