Abstract
Reading is a learned skill crucial for educational attainment. Children from families of lower socioeconomic status (SES) tend to have poorer reading performance and this gap widens across years of schooling. Reading relies on the orchestration of multiple neural systems integrated via specific white-matter pathways, but there is limited understanding about whether these pathways relate differentially to reading performance depending on SES background. Kindergarten white-matter FA and second-grade reading outcomes were investigated in an SES-diverse sample of 125 children. The three left-hemisphere white-matter tracts most associated with reading, and their right-hemisphere homologs, were examined: arcuate fasciculus (AF), superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF), and inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF). There was a significant and positive association between SES and fractional anisotropy (FA) in the bilateral ILF in kindergarten. SES moderated the association between kindergarten ILF and second grade reading performance, such that it was positive in lower-SES children, but not significant in higher-SES children. These results have implications for understanding the role of the environment in the development of the neural pathways that support reading.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 741-754 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Human Brain Mapping |
| Volume | 40 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 15 2019 |
Funding
This work was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health–National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Grants R01HD067312 to JDEG and NG and R01HD65762-01 to NG). We thank Steven Shannon, Sheeba Arnold, Christina Triantafyl-lou, Atsushi Takahashi and the Athinoula A. Martinos Imaging Center at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT. We thank Kelly Halverson for assistance with data collection. We thank Xi Yu and Ted Turesky for assistance with figure preparation and Satra Ghosh for helpful discussions. We sincerely thank our research testers, school coordinators and principals, and participating families. Participating schools are listed at http://gablab.mit.edu/index.php/READstudy. The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. information Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Grant/Award Numbers: R01HD067312, R01HD65762-01This work was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health?National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Grants R01HD067312 to JDEG and NG and R01HD65762-01 to NG). We thank Steven Shannon, Sheeba Arnold, Christina Triantafyllou, Atsushi Takahashi and the Athinoula A. Martinos Imaging Center at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT. We thank Kelly Halverson for assistance with data collection. We thank Xi Yu and Ted Turesky for assistance with figure preparation and Satra Ghosh for helpful discussions. We sincerely thank our research testers, school coordinators and principals, and participating families. Participating schools are listed at http://gablab.mit.edu/index.php/READstudy. The authors have no conflicts of interest to report.
Keywords
- MRI
- SES
- brain
- education
- fractional anisotropy
- longitudinal
- pre-readers
- reading development
- white matter
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Anatomy
- Radiological and Ultrasound Technology
- Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging
- Neurology
- Clinical Neurology