Developmental changes in neural letter-selectivity: A 1-year follow-up of beginning readers.

ABSTRACT: The developmental course of neural tuning to visual letter strings is unclear. Here we tested 39 children longitudinally, at the beginning of grade 1 (6.45 ± 0.33 years old) and 1 year after, with fast periodic visual stimulation in electroencephalography to assess the evolution of selective neural responses to letter strings and their relationship with emerging reading abilities. At both grades, frequency-tagged letter strings were discriminated from pseudofont strings (i.e. letter-selectivity) over the left occipito-temporal cortex, with effects observed at the individual level in 62% of children. However, visual words were not discriminated from pseudowords (lexical access) at either grade. Following 1 year of schooling, letter-selective responses showed a specific increase in amplitude

SUBMITTER: van de Walle de Ghelcke A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7816260 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature