IntroductionReading proficiency is a foundational skill. Failure to achieve reading competence constitutes a global educational and public health challenge. This burden is especially high among children with neurodevelopmental conditions. Despite the availability of evidence-based frameworks, such as Response to Intervention (RTI), a lack of scalable, context-sensitive models remains for supporting struggling readers in low-resource environments. Building on this context, this study describes the Less Intensive Response to Intervention Tier 2 (LIRTI2). We hypothesize that the LIRTI2 will improve reading speed and comprehension in children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Borderline Intellectual Functioning (BIF), and those at risk for Dyslexia (arDYS). We also predict differential effectiveness of the intervention across neurodevelopmental profiles.MethodsThis retrospective, service-based study included 90 children (median age = 9 years, 3rd grade). Participants (ADHD = 37, BIF = 14, and arDYS = 39) completed 18 weekly, two-hour sessions per week that combined explicit phonological awareness and fluency-focused instruction with playful, low-cost materials. For the intervention, students were divided into small groups based on reading proficiency. Reading speed (words per minute) and reading comprehension (literal questions) were assessed before and after the intervention. The groups were similar in age, school grade, and sex distribution.ResultsA significant diagnostic effect was found on post-intervention reading speed, after adjusting for baseline reading speed and schooling [ANCOVA F(2,85) = 4.345, p > 0.01]. The ADHD group demonstrated significantly higher reading speed than BIF (p = 0.034) and arDYS (p = 0.047), whereas the BIF–arDYS comparison was not significant. While clinical group was not associated with reading comprehension level (low, medium, high) before LIRTI2, this association became significant after the intervention [χ2(4, N = 90) = 14.75, p = 0.005]. Adjusted standardized residuals indicated that more children with ADHD achieved “high” comprehension levels.DiscussionLIRTI2 is an out-of-school, small-group intervention with potential scalability in low-resource settings where access to services is limited. Reading fluency and comprehension improved following the intervention, with larger gains in children with ADHD than in those with BIF or arDYS. Future studies with follow-up are needed to confirm which learner profiles benefit most and to determine the intervention’s broader academic impact.

It has been argued that university students with dyslexia compensate for their reading deficits by a neural re-organization of the typical reading network, where the lexical representations of words are (re-)structured according to semantic rather than orthographic information. To investigate the re-organization of neural word representations more directly, we used multivariate representational similarity analyses (RSA) to find out which brain regions of the reading network respond to orthographic and semantic similarity between 544 pairs of words and whether there were any differences between typical and dyslexic readers. In accordance with the re-organization hypothesis, we predicted greater similarity (i.e., correlation of neural dissimilarity matrices) in adult dyslexic than in typical readers in regions associated with semantic processing and weaker similarity in regions associated with orthographic processing. Our results did not confirm these predictions. First, we found sensitivity to semantic similarity in all three subparts of the fusiform gyrus (FG1, FG2, and FG3) bilaterally. Adults with dyslexia showed less (rather than more) sensitivity to semantic similarity in the posterior subpart of fusiform gyrus (FG1) in the left hemisphere. Second, in typical readers, sensitivity to orthographic information was not only found in the left fusiform gyrus (FG1, FG2, and FG3) but also in left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Adults with dyslexia, in contrast, did not show sensitivity to orthographic information in left IFG. However, they showed increased sensitivity to orthographic information in the right hemisphere FG1. Together, the results show abnormal orthographic processing in left IFG and right FG1 and reduced semantic information in left FG1. While we found evidence for compensatory re-organization in adult dyslexia, the present results do not support the hypothesis according to which adults with dyslexia rely more heavily on semantic information. Instead, they revealed atypical hemispheric organization of the reading network that is not restricted to the typical left language hemisphere.

When asked to decide if an ungrammatical sequence of words is grammatically correct or not, readers find it more difficult to do so (longer response times (RTs) and more errors) if the ungrammatical sequence is created by transposing two words from a correct sentence (e.g., the white was cat big) compared with matched ungrammatical sequences where transposing two words does not produce a correct sentence (e.g., the white was cat slowly). Here, we provide a further exploration of transposed-word effects when reading unspaced text in Experiment 1, and when reading from right-to-left ("backwards" reading) in Experiment 2. We found significant transposed-word effects in error rates but not in RTs, a pattern previously found in studies using a one-word-at-a-time sequential presentation. We conclude that the absence of transposed-word effects in RTs in the present study and prior work is due to that atypical nature of the way that text was presented. Under the hypothesis that transposed-word effects at least partly reflect a certain amount of parallel word processing during reading, we further suggest that the ability to process words in parallel would require years of exposure to text in its regular format.

When asked to decide if an ungrammatical sequence of words is grammatically correct or not readers find it more difficult to do so (longer response times (RTs) and more errors) if the ungrammatical sequence is created by transposing two words from a correct sentence (e.g., the white was cat big ) compared with a set of matched ungrammatical sequences for which transposing any two words could not produce a correct sentence (e.g., the white was cat slowly ). Here, we provide a further exploration of transposed-word effects while imposing serial reading by using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) in Experiments 1 (respond at the end of the sequence) and 2 (respond as soon as possible—which could be during the sequence). Crucially, in Experiment 3 we compared performance under serial RSVP conditions with parallel presentation of the same stimuli for the same total duration and with the same group of participants. We found robust transposed-word effects in the RSVP conditions tested in all experiments, but only in error rates and not in RTs. This contrasts with the effects found in both errors and RTs in our prior work using parallel presentation, as well as the parallel presentation conditions tested in Experiment 3. We provide a tentative account of why, under conditions that impose a serial word-by-word reading strategy, transposed-word effects are only seen in error rates and not in RTs.

Spoken language is a distinctive trace of our species and it is naturally acquired during infancy. Written language, in contrast, is artificial, and the correspondences between arbitrary visual symbols and the spoken language for reading and writing should be explicitly learned with external help. In this paper, I present several examples of how written language acquisition is both shaped by and has an impact on brain function and cognition. They show in one hand how our phylogenetic legacy influences education and on the other hand how ontogenetic needs for education can rapidly subdue deeply rooted neurocognitive mechanisms. The understanding of this bidirectional influences provides a more dynamic view of how plasticity interfaces phylogeny and ontogeny in human learning, with implications for both neurosciences and education.

We have recently used randomized controlled trials to examine the impact of a short neuroscience-informed causal intervention using a targeted training to inhibit a deeply rooted visual mechanism (mirror invariance) that hinders literacy acquisition, combined with post-training sleep (for learning consolidation). Using this training protocol, we have shown unprecedented improvements in visual perception of letters, writing, and a two-fold increase in reading fluency in first graders. Here, we describe this ecologically valid school-based intervention protocol to probe inhibition of mirror invariance for letters, including the detailed training instructions, post-training sleep consolidation, as well as practical tips and potential adaptations to different school sizes. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Torres et al., (2021).

Can several words be read in parallel, and if so, how is information about word order encoded under such circumstances? Here we focused on the bottom-up mechanisms involved in word-order encoding under the hypothesis of parallel word processing. We recorded EEG while participants performed a visual same-different matching task with sequences of five words (reference sequence followed by a target sequence each presented for 400 ms). The reference sequence could be grammatically correct or an ungrammatical scrambling of the same words (e.g., he wants these green apples/green wants these he apples). Target sequences for 'different' responses were created by either transposing two words in the reference (e.g., he these wants green apples/green these wants he apples), or by changing two words (e.g., he talks their green apples/green talks their he apples). Different responses were harder to make in the transposition condition, and this transposed-word effect started to emerge around 250 ms post-target onset. The transposed-word effect was first seen on an early onsetting N400 component, with reduced amplitudes (i.e., less negative ERPs) in the transposed condition relative to a two-word replacement condition. A later transposed-word effect was seen on a more temporally widespread positive-going component. Converging behavioral and EEG results showed no effects of reference grammaticality on 'different' responses nor an interaction with transposed-word effects. Our results point to the noisy, bottom-up association of word identities to spatiotopic locations as one means of encoding word order information, and one key source of transposed-word effects.

Mirror invariance, a visual mechanism that emerges early in human development, enables a prompt recognition of mirror images. This visual capacity, useful to recognize objects, faces, and places from both left and right perspectives is also present in primates, pigeons, and cephalopods. Notwithstanding, the same visual mechanism is suspected to be the source of a specific difficulty for a relatively recent human invention - reading - by creating confusion between mirror-letters (e.g., b-d in the Latin alphabet). Here we show that mirror invariance represents a major leash for reading fluency acquisition in first graders. We used a causal approach, specifically targeting mirror invariance for letters and observing an unprecedented twofold increase in reading fluency. This gain is achieved with as little as 7.5 hours of multisensory-motor training for mirror letters, mostly with eyes closed, in a synergic combination with post-training sleep. Indeed, the magnitude, automaticity, and duration of this learning were greatly enhanced by sleep, which keeps the gains perfectly intact even after 4 months, being critical to double reading fluency with such short training. The results were consistently replicated in three randomized controlled trials using an ecologically valid school-based design. They not only reveal an extreme case of cognitive plasticity in humans (i.e., the inhibition of at least ~25 million years-old visual mechanism in just three weeks) for a cultural activity (reading) but at the same time also show a simple and cost-effective way to unleash the reading fluency potential of millions of children worldwide.

The present study examined transposed-word effects in a same-different matching task with sequences of 5 words. The word sequences were presented one after the other, each for 400 ms, the first in lowercase and the second in uppercase. The first sequence, the reference, was either a grammatically correct sentence or a scrambled ungrammatical sequence of the same words. The second sequence, the target, was either the same as the reference or differed either by transposing the second and third words or the third and fourth words in the first sequence or by replacing the same 2 words with different words in Experiment 1 or by a single word replacement in Experiment 2. The results showed that "same" responses were easier to make with grammatically correct references and that "different" responses were harder to make when the difference involved a transposition compared with a replacement. This transposed-word effect was found to be independent of reference grammaticality in Experiment 1. Experiment 2 again found a transposed-word effect for ungrammatical sequences, but here the effect was reduced compared with grammatical sequences. The effects found with ungrammatical sequences are taken to reflect the noisy bottom-up association of word identities to locations along a line of text, and this process combines with the influence of top-down grammatical constraints when "different" judgments are harder to make.

Schooling has changed surprisingly little since its origins 5 millennia ago, despite efforts toward massification and inclusion. Research on a wide arch of fields indicates that schools must undergo major transformation in order to benefit from the current science of learning. This chapter outlines some of the seemingly utopic main kernels of this necessary transformation. The school of the future will fully embrace the physiological aspects of learning, and strive to optimize sleep, nutrition, and exercise for children and adults of all ages, so as to improve intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships. Learning will have computer games as scaffold for the crystallization the link between phonemes and graphemes during literacy acquisition, and for the generation of individual learning curves for the personalized tracking of performance. The retention of academic contents will be greatly improved by frequent cumulative tests and other opportunities for retrieval practice, and the use of novelty as an extrinsic adjuvant of learning will be emphasized.

Understanding others in everyday situations requires multiple types of information processing (visual, auditory, higher order…) which implicates the use of multiple neural circuits of the human brain. Here, using a multisensory paradigm we investigate one aspect of social understanding less explored in the literature: instead of focusing on the capacity to infer what a specific person is thinking, we explore here how people with high functioning autism (HFA) and matched controls with typical development (TD) infer the "population thinking". For this we created an audio-visual 'social norm inference' task. Participants were required to imagine how most people would judge the appropriateness of vocal utterances in relation to different emotional visual contexts. Behavioral findings demonstrated that HFA individuals show more interindividual variability in these judgments despite equal within-participant reliability relative to TD. This was also the case for judgements of the valence of these vocalizations when presented in isolation. At the neural level, multivoxel pattern analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging data revealed strikingly similar neural representations between HFA and TD participants at the group level across different hierarchical levels and neural systems. However, analyses at the individual-participant level revealed that the "Temporal Voice Area" (TVA) shows more interindividual variability in the HFA group, both for neural representations and functional connectivity. Thus, this larger neural idiosyncrasy in a high-level auditory area matches with the larger behavioral idiosyncrasy in HFA individuals, when judging auditory valence and its adequacy in different social scenarios. These results suggest that idiosyncrasy in task-relevant sensory areas in HFA participants could underlie their greater difficulties to estimate how others can think.

When two sequences of words are presented successively for 400 ms each, it is harder to decide that the two sequences differ when the difference is generated by transposing two words compared with a condition where the same two words are replaced by different words. Interestingly, this transposed-word effect is obtained even when the first sequence is ungrammatical. One account of the effect seen with ungrammatical sequences is that participants detect mismatching letters rather than words. Under this account, the migration of letter identities across adjacent words would make it harder to judge the transposed-word condition as being different. The present experiment put this account to test by comparing transposition effects to sequences of words vs. pseudowords. We hypothesized that if same-different judgments are made on the basis of sublexical orthographic information only, then we should observe similar effects for words and pseudowords. Although transposition effects were found with pseudoword stimuli, the effects were significantly reduced compared to word sequences. This suggests that the noisy bottom-up allocation of word identities to locations along a line of text is one key mechanism driving transposed-word effects.

Humans are highly skilled in social reasoning, e.g., inferring thoughts of others. This mentalizing ability systematically recruits brain regions such as Temporo-Parietal Junction (TPJ), Precuneus (PC) and medial Prefrontal Cortex (mPFC). Further, posterior mPFC is associated with allocentric mentalizing and conflict monitoring while anterior mPFC is associated with self-reference (egocentric) processing. Here we extend this work to how we reason not just about what one person thinks but about the abstract shared social norm. We apply functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate neural representations while participants judge the social congruency between emotional auditory utterances in relation to visual scenes according to how 'most people' would perceive it. Behaviorally, judging according to a social norm increased the similarity of response patterns among participants. Multivoxel pattern analysis revealed that social congruency information was not represented in visual and auditory areas, but was clear in most parts of the mentalizing network: TPJ, PC and posterior (but not anterior) mPFC. Furthermore, interindividual variability in anterior mPFC representations was inversely related to the behavioral ability to adjust to the social norm. Our results suggest that social norm inferencing is associated with a distributed and partially individually specific representation of social congruency in the mentalizing network.

Humans show a unique capacity to process complex information from multiple sources. Social perception in natural environment provides a good example of such capacity as it typically requires the integration of information from different sensory systems, and also from different levels of sensory processing. Here, instead of studying one isolate system and level of representation, we focused upon a neuroimaging paradigm which allows to capture multiple brain representations simultaneously, i.e., low and high-level processing in two different sensory systems, as well as abstract cognitive processing of congruency. Subjects performed social decisions based on the congruency between auditory and visual processing. Using multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data, we probed a wide variety of representations. Our results confirmed the expected representations at each level and system according to the literature. Further, beyond the hierarchical organization of the visual, auditory and higher order neural systems, we provide a more nuanced picture of the brain functional architecture. Indeed, brain regions of the same neural system show similarity in their representations, but they also share information with regions from other systems. Further, the strength of neural information varied considerably across domains in a way that was not obviously related to task relevance. For instance, selectivity for task-irrelevant animacy of visual input was very strong. The present approach represents a new way to explore the richness of co-activated brain representations underlying the natural complexity in human cognition.