Is your child a pre-reader? Is your child at risk for developmental dyslexia or would you like to help develop methods for the early identification of reading disabilities?

If you have young children in the pre-reading stage you are invited to participate in a research project aimed at developing early identification of reading difficulties.

Is your child at risk for developmental dyslexia? We are investigating the early detection of reading difficulties in pre-reading children. The main goal of this study is to use brain imaging methods to identify children at risk for developmental dyslexia at a very early age, before reading skills are even present. Because reading problems tend to run in families, we aim to look at how young children who have at least one family member diagnosed with dyslexia use their brains. We will compare the brain networks of children who may later show signs of developmental dyslexia with those of typical pre-reading children.

Understanding brain processes in children with a risk for developmental dyslexia may help us to improve and implement early remediation programs. It may also lead to the development and support of social networks for parents and children. We hope that our work will help educators, scientists and parents to better understand how children with developmental dyslexia can best be supported to improve their reading development and experiences. Participation in this study will involve 1-2 sessions of behavioral testing and one session using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which is a non-invasive tool to examine brain differences in children with and without a family history of developmental dyslexia. We have some pictures of our brain camera (MRI machine) in the Kids Area. During our imaging session, the children will play our Spaceship Adventure Game (for a description see below). If you still have questions or if you would like to participate, please contact us per email or call the Gaablab at 857-218-4629 or 857-218-3022.

The most important part of our studies are our participants. We can't conduct research without them!

Participation in this study will involve the following visits (2 hours each) to our lab in Boston or Waltham:
- Visit 1: Children will play auditory processing games on the computer (i.e. listening to sounds and making judgments about them
- Visit 2: children will have their reading, language and cognitive abilities assessed using standardized assessments (i.e. CTOPP, CELF, K-BIT)
- Visit 3: Children will participate in a brain imaging session (fMRI). During this session the children will play our Spaceship Adventure Game. This session will take place iat the CHB in Waltham.

***Ideally we would like to have you and your child visit us for two-three initial visits this year (before your child learns how to read) and then for one visit next year (after your child learns how to read) and the year after.

During our imaging session we will play computer games with your child and look at their language, reading, auditory and musical abilities. We will also look how your child's brain processes sounds, language and pictures. The kids usually have a lot of fun. This is is ashort outtake from our "Spaceship Adventure Story" featuring Mi & Mo:

This is what happened:
Mi and Mo were zoming around in their spaceship when they suddenly noticed a smoky smell. The spaceship was about to crash! Quick they landed on Earth.

The Earth seemed nice, but it was very different from home. Mi and Mo missed their family very much. It got darker and darker. How would they ever get back home?

Three little elfs felt pity with the sad aliens and they came to offer them help. But to get back home, every elf has a task for Mi and Mo. Mi and Mo are frightened, because that might be hard. But wait may be YOU can help them to get back home...?