Dyslexia gets a break in Italy
By Bruce Bower
Although people with the reading and language disorder known as dyslexia exhibit a common disruption of brain activity, their performance on reading tests varies greatly from one country to another, according to a report in the March 16 Science.
There’s a simple reason why individuals with dyslexia read better in certain countries, according to neuroscientist Eraldo Paulesu of the University of Milan Bicocca in Italy and his coworkers. Those who read languages such as Italian–in which specific letter combinations almost always stand for the same sounds–have the advantage over those who read languages with less-consistent spelling rules.