Altered neural circuits accompany lower performance during narrative comprehension in children with reading difficulties: an fMRI study

Abstract

Narrative comprehension is a linguistic ability that is foundational for future reading ability. The aim of the current study was to examine the neural circuitry of children with reading difficulties (RD) compared to typical readers during a narrative-comprehension task. We hypothesized that due to deficient executive functions, which support narrative comprehension abilities, children with RD would display altered activation and functional connectivity, as well as lower performance on a narrative-comprehension task. Children with RD and typical readers were scanned during a narrative-comprehension task and administered reading behavioral tests. Children with RD scored significantly lower on the narrative-comprehension task than did typical readers. Composite activation maps showed more diffused activation during narrative comprehension in the RD group. Maps comparing the two reading groups showed more activation in the frontal lobes (regions responsible for executive functions), and functional connectivity showed higher global efficiency in children with RD than in typical readers. Global efficiency was negatively correlated with phonological awareness and reading and executive function scores in the entire study group. Children with RD may suffer from narrative-comprehension difficulties due to diffused activation of language areas, as was observed during a narrative-comprehension task. Greater effort in this task may be reflected by the engagement of brain regions related to executive functions and higher functional connectivity or attributed to difficulties in phonological processing and reading and executive functions. Therefore, the accommodation given to children with RD of reading aloud may need to be revised due to the observed difficulty in this domain.

Longitudinal Task-Related Functional Connectivity Changes Predict Reading Development

“…Greater dorsal striatum connectivity is associated with poorer adult reading performance, as measured using a pseudoword decoding task, which may reflect inefficient lexical processing ( Achal et al, 2016 ). This is consistent with research showing less efficient processing (e.g., a high degree of integrated functional connectivity across a more diffuse network) within regions associated with a narrative comprehension task for children with reading difficulties compared to task-dependent regions of normal readers ( Horowitz-Kraus et al, 2016 ). Whole-brain functional connectivity analysis for English as a second language (ESL) individuals indicates more localized clusters for an English phonological rhyming task in second language reading impaired children compared to normal controls ( Liu et al, 2016 ).…”

Maternal depression is associated with altered functional connectivity between neural circuits related to visual, auditory, and cognitive processing during stories listening in preschoolers

“…Young children use a set of innate human-specific skills, particularly auditory word recognition and syntactic and semantic processing, when listening to linguistic stimulation [3]. As found by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), these linguistic abilities rely on phonological processing supported by the superior temporal gyrus (STG, BA 22) and the angular gyrus (AG, BA 40,39), as well as semantics and syntax engaging the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG, BA 44,45). The ability to comprehend language also relies on abilities that are not specific to language, such as executive functions, supported by frontal regions (BA 10,6,46,9,8).…”

Visual and linguistic narrative comprehension in autism spectrum disorders: Neural evidence for modality-independent impairments

“…In contrast, "narrative comprehension" refers to the access of semantic informationhow various themes, characters, and plotlines fit togethermediated by narrative structures (Cohn, 2013a(Cohn, , 2013b. Narrative comprehension has been assessed by, for example, asking participants to answer comprehension questions following presentation of a written or spoken narrative (Horowitz-Kraus, Buck, & Dorrmann, 2016;Nuske & Bavin, 2011;Schmithorst, Holland, & Plante, 2006;Yarkoni, Speer, & Zacks, 2008); to judge the coherence or comprehensibility of a written story (Ferstl & von Cramon, 2001;Martín-Loeches, Casado, Hernández-Tamames, & Álvarez-Linera, 2008); to verbally recall or retell a story (Martín-Loeches et al, 2008); or to arrange sentences to create a coherent story (Jolliffe & Baron-Cohen, 2000; see Mar, 2004, for a review).…”