Schedule of Events | Symposia

Cognitive mechanisms and white matter pathways supporting reading acquisition in Spanish speakers.

Poster Session E - Monday, March 31, 2025, 2:30 – 4:30 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Moramay Ramos-Flores¹ (morarf35@gmail.com), M. Florencia Assaneo¹, Luis Concha; ¹Institute of Neurobiology, National Autonomous University of Mexico

Reading is one of the most intricate abilities developed during childhood, relying on the dynamic interplay of cognitive skills and neuroanatomical structures. Despite substantial research, much of our understanding of reading acquisition derives from studies of English-speaking populations, limiting the generalizability of these findings to other languages. In this study, we assessed 61 monolingual Mexican-Spanish-speaking children aged 6 to 8 years, including 41 early readers and 20 non-readers. Participants completed seven tasks from a cognitive battery tailored for Latin America, assessing verbal and metalinguistic skills. Additionally, in early readers, fluency was measured by having them read aloud a short, child-friendly story. Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI) data were collected for all participants, and mean diffusion kurtosis imaging fractional anisotropy (dkiFA) values were computed for five bilateral reading-related white matter tracts7: the arcuate, fronto-occipital, inferior longitudinal, superior longitudinal, and uncinate fasciculi. Results revealed that early readers exhibited higher dkiFA values in a composite measure of bilateral ventral tracts compared to non-readers, a difference fully mediated by metalinguistic skills. Among early readers, higher dkiFA values in the right arcuate and right superior longitudinal fasciculi were positively correlated with reading fluency, independent of (i.e., not mediated by) the assessed cognitive skills. Our findings highlight the essential role of metalinguistic skills and bilateral ventral pathway in early reading acquisition among Spanish-speaking children. As reading develops, different brain structures become relevant. Notably, the right dorsal pathway supports fluency in early Spanish readers, challenging typical left-hemisphere dominance models.

Topic Area: LANGUAGE: Development & aging