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Wai Ting Siok

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Mansoura University

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Shaanxi Normal University

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Papers by Wai Ting Siok

A structural-functional basis for dyslexia in the cortex of Chinese readers

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2008

Developmental dyslexia is a neurobiologically based disorder that affects ≈5–17% of school childr... more Developmental dyslexia is a neurobiologically based disorder that affects ≈5–17% of school children and is characterized by a severe impairment in reading skill acquisition. For readers of alphabetic (e.g., English) languages, recent neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that dyslexia is associated with weak reading-related activity in left temporoparietal and occipitotemporal regions, and this activity difference may reflect reductions in gray matter volume in these areas. Here, we find different structural and functional abnormalities in dyslexic readers of Chinese, a nonalphabetic language. Compared with normally developing controls, children with impaired reading in logographic Chinese exhibited reduced gray matter volume in a left middle frontal gyrus region previously shown to be important for Chinese reading and writing. Using functional MRI to study language-related activation of cortical regions in dyslexics, we found reduced activation in this same left middle frontal gyr...

Editorial: Reading in the Digital Age: The Impact of Using Digital Devices on Children's Reading, Writing and Thinking Skills

Frontiers in Psychology

Differential impacts of different keyboard inputting methods on reading and writing skills

Scientific Reports

Nowadays, typewriting has become an important mode of written communication. A report that typewr... more Nowadays, typewriting has become an important mode of written communication. A report that typewriting may hinder Chinese children's reading development has sparked substantial concern about whether typing on electronic devices would increase the rate of reading disorders, wherein children used a pronunciation-based input system that associates alphabet letters with phonemes in standard Chinese (Putonghua) and may conflict with the traditional visuomotor-based learning processes for written Chinese. If orthographic-based input methods that require good awareness of the orthographic structure of characters are used, different outcomes might be observed. This study examined the impact of participants' experience in different typewriting methods on the literacy abilities of fluent Chinese-English bilingual readers. We found that orthographic-based typewriting measures correlated positively with Chinese reading measures, whereas pronunciation-based typewriting measures did not correlate with Chinese reading measures but correlated positively with English reading and spelling performance. Orthographic-based typewriters also performed better than pronunciation-based typewriters in Chinese reading and dictation when their age, typewriting skills and pre-University language ability were statistically controlled. Our findings based on two contrastive writing systems suggest that typewriting methods that tally with the learning principles of a writing system should be used to promote and preserve literacy skills in the digital era. In the digital age, information is transmitted electronically, and communications are achieved digitally by texts, instant messages and video calls using various communication tools and social networking platforms. People at the present time seldom write by hand, as keyboarding techniques allow easy editing and saving of texts and offer useful and convenient tools such as spelling and grammar checks, text and stylistic formatting, translation, speech-text conversion, text sharing and simultaneous editing with others via the internet. In schools, electronic-based learning is promoted, and students are encouraged to use the internet to search for information and expand their knowledge. They are sometimes, or even often, required to complete assignments using computers and to submit them online or in printed form. Therefore, children nowadays are expected to have some basic typing or keyboarding skills when they start primary school, and handwriting is used less and less as a form of communication and literacy learning. This raises a key question: how do the increasingly used keyboarding techniques coupled with reduced handwriting affect people's reading and writing skills? Extensive experimental studies using alphabetic languages such as English have shown that phonological processing skills play a central role in reading acquisition, with impaired reading caused by phonological deficits 1-6 , but writing or hand-copying skills have not been found to predict reading outcomes 7-9. Handwriting and typewriting in alphabetic languages entail similar perceptual and cognitive processes but different attentional and sensory-motor skills. Specifically, both writing modes start from either phonological (generated externally for dictation or internally for composition) or visual inputs (written or printed texts for copying or typewriting), and may involve processes such as speech or visual word recognition, idea formulation, semantic or lexical retrieval, phoneme-grapheme conversion (or spelling process), orthographic long-term and working memory 10 , visual analysis, graphic-motor planning and motoric hand movements 11-13. Furthermore, given these two writing modes both require eye-hand coordination (or visual-motor integration), handwriting requires fine motor skills to trace and reproduce letter shape carefully, whereas typewriting requires searching and touching of the right key on a keyboard when letters are differentiated by the visuospatial location of the keys instead of the graphomotor demands. Handwriting may therefore offer an additional informative memory trace for letter-shape

Abnormal neural response to phonological working memory demands in persistent developmental stuttering

Human brain mapping, Jan 26, 2018

Persistent developmental stuttering is a neurological disorder that commonly manifests as a motor... more Persistent developmental stuttering is a neurological disorder that commonly manifests as a motor problem. Cognitive theories, however, hold that poorly developed cognitive skills are the origins of stuttering. Working memory (WM), a multicomponent cognitive system that mediates information maintenance and manipulation, is known to play an important role in speech production, leading us to postulate that the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying stuttering may be associated with a WM deficit. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we aimed to elucidate brain mechanisms in a phonological WM task in adults who stutter and controls. A right-lateralized compensatory mechanism for a deficit in the rehearsal process and neural disconnections associated with the central executive dysfunction were found. Furthermore, the neural abnormalities underlying the phonological WM were independent of memory load. This study demonstrates for the first time the atypical neural responses to ph...

A Genome-Wide Association Study Identifies Genetic Variants Associated with Mathematics Ability

Scientific reports, Feb 3, 2017

Mathematics ability is a complex cognitive trait with polygenic heritability. Genome-wide associa... more Mathematics ability is a complex cognitive trait with polygenic heritability. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) has been an effective approach to investigate genetic components underlying mathematic ability. Although previous studies reported several candidate genetic variants, none of them exceeded genome-wide significant threshold in general populations. Herein, we performed GWAS in Chinese elementary school students to identify potential genetic variants associated with mathematics ability. The discovery stage included 494 and 504 individuals from two independent cohorts respectively. The replication stage included another cohort of 599 individuals. In total, 28 of 81 candidate SNPs that met validation criteria were further replicated. Combined meta-analysis of three cohorts identified four SNPs (rs1012694, rs11743006, rs17778739 and rs17777541) of SPOCK1 gene showing association with mathematics ability (minimum p value 5.67 × 10(-10), maximum β -2.43). The SPOCK1 gene is loc...

The role of anxiety in stuttering: Evidence from functional connectivity

Neuroscience, Jan 2, 2016

Persistent developmental stuttering is a neurologically based speech disorder associated with cog... more Persistent developmental stuttering is a neurologically based speech disorder associated with cognitive-linguistic, motor and emotional abnormalities. Previous studies investigating the relationship between anxiety and stuttering have yielded mixed results, but it has not yet been examined whether anxiety influences brain activity underlying stuttering. Here, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated the functional connectivity associated with state anxiety in a syllable repetition task, and trait anxiety during rest in adults who stutter (N=19) and fluent controls (N=19). During the speech task, people who stutter (PWS) showed increased functional connectivity of the right amygdala with the prefrontal gyrus (the left ventromedial frontal gyrus and right middle frontal gyrus) and the left insula compared to controls. During rest, PWS showed stronger functional connectivity between the right hippocampus and the left orbital frontal gyrus, and between the lef...

Chinese Character and English Word processing in children's ventral occipitotemporal cortex: fMRI evidence for script invariance

NeuroImage, Jan 21, 2016

Learning to read is thought to involve the recruitment of the left hemisphere ventral occipitotem... more Learning to read is thought to involve the recruitment of the left hemisphere ventral occipitotemporal cortex (OTC) by a process of "neuronal recycling", whereby object processing mechanisms are co-opted for reading. Under the same theoretical framework, it has been proposed that the visual word form area (VWFA) within the OTC processes orthographic stimuli independent of culture and writing systems, suggesting that it is universally involved in written language. However, this "script invariance" has yet to be demonstrated in monolingual readers of two different writing systems studied under the same experimental conditions. Here, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined activity in response to English Words and Chinese Characters in 1st graders in the United States and China, respectively. We examined each group separately and found the readers of English as well as the readers of Chinese to activate the left ventral OTC for their respecti...

Altered functional connectivity in persistent developmental stuttering

Scientific Reports, 2016

Persistent developmental stuttering (PDS) is a speech disorder that impairs communication skills.... more Persistent developmental stuttering (PDS) is a speech disorder that impairs communication skills. Despite extensive research, the core causes of PDS are elusive. Converging evidence from taskinduced neuroimaging methods has demonstrated the contributions of the basal ganglia and the cerebellum to PDS, but such task-state neuroimaging findings are often confounded by behavioral performance differences between subjects who stutter and normal controls. Here, using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging, we investigated functional connectivity within cerebellarcortical and basal ganglia-thalamocortical networks in 16 adults who stutter and 18 age-matched fluent speakers. Seed-to-voxel analysis demonstrated that, compared to controls, adults who stutter showed alternations in functional connectivity of cerebellum to motor cortex as well as connectivity among different locals within cerebellum. Additionally, we found that functional connectivity within cerebellar circuits was significantly correlated with severity of stuttering. The alternations of functional connectivity within basal ganglia-thalamocortical networks were identified as the reduced connectivity of the putamen to the superior temporal gyrus and inferior parietal lobules in adults who stutter. The abnormalities of resting state functional connectivity are assumed to affect language planning and motor execution critical for speaking fluently. Our findings may yield neurobiological cues to the biomarkers of PDS.

Commentary Brain-behavior relations in reading and dyslexia: Implications of Chinese results

Atypical lateralization of phonological working memory in developmental dyslexia

Journal of Neurolinguistics, 2015

Further, the degree of leftward asymmetry correlates positively with reading performance. Thus, t... more Further, the degree of leftward asymmetry correlates positively with reading performance. Thus, the language impairments in dyslexic children appear related to a reduced dominance of the left hemisphere in phonological language functions, which offers clues into the biological dysfunction and possible remediation of developmental dyslexia.

Association study of stuttering candidate genes GNPTAB, GNPTG and NAGPA with dyslexia in Chinese population

BMC Genetics, 2015

Background: Dyslexia is a polygenic speech and language disorder characterized by an unexpected d... more Background: Dyslexia is a polygenic speech and language disorder characterized by an unexpected difficulty in reading in children and adults despite normal intelligence and schooling. Increasing evidence reveals that different speech and language disorders could share common genetic factors. As previous study reported association of GNPTAB, GNPTG and NAGPA with stuttering, we investigated these genes with dyslexia through association analysis. Results: The study was carried out in an unrelated Chinese cohort with 502 dyslexic individuals and 522 healthy controls. In all, 21 Tag SNPs covering GNPTAB, GNPTG and NAGPA were subjected to genotyping. Association analysis was performed on all SNPs. Significant association of rs17031962 in GNPTAB and rs882294 in NAGPA with developmental dyslexia was identified after FDR correction for multiple comparisons. Conclusion: Our results revealed that the stuttering risk genes GNPTAB and NAGPA might also associate with developmental dyslexia in the Chinese population.

Stuttering candidate genes DRD2 but not SLC6A3 is associated with developmental dyslexia in Chinese population

Behavioral and Brain Functions, 2014

Background: Dyslexia is a polygenic developmental disorder characterized by difficulties in readi... more Background: Dyslexia is a polygenic developmental disorder characterized by difficulties in reading and spelling despite normal intelligence, educational backgrounds and perception. Increasing evidences indicated that dyslexia may share similar genetic mechanisms with other speech and language disorders. We proposed that stuttering candidate genes, DRD2 and SLC6A3, might be associated with dyslexia. Methods and results: The study was conducted in an unrelated Chinese cohort with 502 dyslexic cases and 522 healthy controls. In total, 23 Tag SNPs covering the two genes were selected for genotyping through Tagger program. Association analysis was performed on each SNP alone and in haplotypes. One SNP markers in DRD2 showed significant association with developmental dyslexia. Conclusion: These findings indicate that polymorphism of DRD2 gene may be a risk factor of developmental dyslexia in the Chinese population.

Association study of developmental dyslexia candidate genes DCDC2 and KIAA0319 in Chinese population

American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics, 2014

Developmental dyslexia (DD) is characterized by difficulties in reading and spelling independent ... more Developmental dyslexia (DD) is characterized by difficulties in reading and spelling independent of intelligence, educational backgrounds and neurological injuries. Increasing evidences supported DD as a complex genetic disorder and identified four DD candidate genes namely DYX1C1, DCDC2, KIAA0319 and ROBO1. As such, DCDC2 and KIAA0319 are located in DYX2, one of the most studied DD susceptibility loci. However, association of these two genes with DD was inconclusive across different populations. Given the linguistic and genetic differences between Chinese and other populations, it is worthwhile to investigate association of DCDC2 and KIAA0319 with Chinese dyslexic children. Here, we selected 60 tag SNPs covering DCDC2 and KIAA0319 followed by high density genotyping in a large unrelated Chinese cohort with 502 dyslexic cases and 522 healthy controls. Several SNPs (Pmin = 0.0192) of DCDC2 and KIAA0319 as well as a four-maker haplotype (Padjusted = 0.0289, Odds Ratio (OR) = 1.3400) of KIAA0319 showed nominal association with DD. However, none of these results survived Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. Thus, the association of DCDC2 and KIAA0319 with DD in Chinese population should be further validated and their contribution to DD etiology and pathology should be interpreted with caution.

Association of specific language impairment candidate genes CMIP and ATP2C2 with developmental dyslexia in Chinese population

Journal of Neurolinguistics, 2015

association of SLI candidate genes CMIP and ATP2C2 with DD in Chinese population should be furthe... more

Neural basis for processing hidden complexity indexed by small and finite clauses in Mandarin Chinese

Journal of Neurolinguistics, 2015

ABSTRACT In this study we investigate how the human brain processes small clauses and finite clau... more ABSTRACT In this study we investigate how the human brain processes small clauses and finite clauses. Small clauses are instances of ‘simpler’ syntax in the sense that they do not involve operations such as Move and Tense, and have been argued to represent an earlier stage of syntactic evolution before the development of fully-fledged syntax (Bickerton, 1990; Jackendoff 2010; Uriagereka, 2008). Understanding how the brain processes instances of different levels of syntactic complexity may further our understanding of (i) the analytical functions of specific brain regions, and (ii) the distribution of labor in the interpretation or different levels of syntax. To pursue this hypothesis, we ask whether small clauses require different analytical processes than regular syntax. This report provides evidence that they do. In an fMRI study of syntactic processing in a group of Mandarin speakers, small clauses showed greater activation of areas involved in semantic processing. In addition, both small and finite clauses showed substantial activation of areas implicated in syntactic and semantic processing, including significant RH activation. We interpret these findings with reference to Levinson&#39;s articulatory bottleneck: structures which appear simpler in terms of syntactic production may require more effort in parsing.

How the brain reads the Chinese language: recent neuroimaging findings

The Handbook of East Asian Psycholinguistics, 2006

Neural Basis of Dyslexia: A Comparison between Dyslexic and Nondyslexic Children Equated for Reading Ability

Journal of Neuroscience, 2006

Adults and children with developmental dyslexia exhibit reduced parietotemporal activation in fun... more Adults and children with developmental dyslexia exhibit reduced parietotemporal activation in functional neuroimaging studies of phonological processing. These studies used age-matched and/or intelligence quotient-matched control groups whose reading ability and scanner task performance were often superior to that of the dyslexic group. It is unknown, therefore, whether differences in activation reflect simply poorer performance in the scanner, the underlying level of reading ability, or more specific neural correlates of dyslexia. To resolve this uncertainty, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study, with a rhyme judgment task, in which we compared dyslexic children with two control groups: age-matched children and reading-matched children (younger normal readers equated for reading ability or scanner-performance to the dyslexic children). Dyslexic children exhibited reduced activation relative to both age-matched and reading-matched children in the left parietotemporal cortex and five other regions, including the right parietotemporal cortex. The dyslexic children also exhibited reduced activation bilaterally in the parietotemporal cortex when compared with children equated for task performance during scanning. Nine of the 10 dyslexic children exhibited reduced left parietotemporal activation compared with their individually selected age-matched or reading-matched control children. Additionally, normal reading fifth graders showed more activation in the same bilateral parietotemporal regions than normal-reading third graders. These findings indicate that the activation differences seen in the dyslexic children cannot be accounted for by either current reading level or scanner task performance, but instead represent a distinct developmental atypicality in the neural systems that support learning to read.

Functional and morphometric brain dissociation between dyslexia and reading ability

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2007

Language regions of brain are operative in color perception

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2009

China's language input system in the digital age affects children's reading development

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013

Written Chinese as a logographic system was developed over 3,000 y ago. Historically, Chinese chi... more Written Chinese as a logographic system was developed over 3,000 y ago. Historically, Chinese children have learned to read by learning to associate the visuo-graphic properties of Chinese characters with lexical meaning, typically through handwriting. In recent years, however, many Chinese children have learned to use electronic communication devices based on the pinyin input method, which associates phonemes and English letters with characters. When children use pinyin to key in letters, their spelling no longer depends on reproducing the visuo-graphic properties of characters that are indispensable to Chinese reading, and, thus, typing in pinyin may conflict with the traditional learning processes for written Chinese. We therefore tested character reading ability and pinyin use by primary school children in three Chinese cites: Beijing (n = 466), Guangzhou (n = 477), and Jining (n = 4,908). Children with severe reading difficulty are defined as those who were normal in nonverbal IQ but two grades (i.e., 2 y) behind in character-reading achievement. We found that the overall incidence rate of severe reading difficulty appears to be much higher than ever reported on Chinese reading. Crucially, we found that children's reading scores were significantly negatively correlated with their use of the pinyin input method, suggesting that pinyin typing on e-devices hinders Chinese reading development. The Chinese language has survived the technological challenges of the digital era, but the benefits of communicating digitally may come with a cost in proficient learning of written Chinese. child development | developmental dyslexia | language learning

A structural-functional basis for dyslexia in the cortex of Chinese readers

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2008

Developmental dyslexia is a neurobiologically based disorder that affects ≈5–17% of school childr... more Developmental dyslexia is a neurobiologically based disorder that affects ≈5–17% of school children and is characterized by a severe impairment in reading skill acquisition. For readers of alphabetic (e.g., English) languages, recent neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that dyslexia is associated with weak reading-related activity in left temporoparietal and occipitotemporal regions, and this activity difference may reflect reductions in gray matter volume in these areas. Here, we find different structural and functional abnormalities in dyslexic readers of Chinese, a nonalphabetic language. Compared with normally developing controls, children with impaired reading in logographic Chinese exhibited reduced gray matter volume in a left middle frontal gyrus region previously shown to be important for Chinese reading and writing. Using functional MRI to study language-related activation of cortical regions in dyslexics, we found reduced activation in this same left middle frontal gyr...

Editorial: Reading in the Digital Age: The Impact of Using Digital Devices on Children's Reading, Writing and Thinking Skills

Frontiers in Psychology

Differential impacts of different keyboard inputting methods on reading and writing skills

Scientific Reports

Nowadays, typewriting has become an important mode of written communication. A report that typewr... more Nowadays, typewriting has become an important mode of written communication. A report that typewriting may hinder Chinese children's reading development has sparked substantial concern about whether typing on electronic devices would increase the rate of reading disorders, wherein children used a pronunciation-based input system that associates alphabet letters with phonemes in standard Chinese (Putonghua) and may conflict with the traditional visuomotor-based learning processes for written Chinese. If orthographic-based input methods that require good awareness of the orthographic structure of characters are used, different outcomes might be observed. This study examined the impact of participants' experience in different typewriting methods on the literacy abilities of fluent Chinese-English bilingual readers. We found that orthographic-based typewriting measures correlated positively with Chinese reading measures, whereas pronunciation-based typewriting measures did not correlate with Chinese reading measures but correlated positively with English reading and spelling performance. Orthographic-based typewriters also performed better than pronunciation-based typewriters in Chinese reading and dictation when their age, typewriting skills and pre-University language ability were statistically controlled. Our findings based on two contrastive writing systems suggest that typewriting methods that tally with the learning principles of a writing system should be used to promote and preserve literacy skills in the digital era. In the digital age, information is transmitted electronically, and communications are achieved digitally by texts, instant messages and video calls using various communication tools and social networking platforms. People at the present time seldom write by hand, as keyboarding techniques allow easy editing and saving of texts and offer useful and convenient tools such as spelling and grammar checks, text and stylistic formatting, translation, speech-text conversion, text sharing and simultaneous editing with others via the internet. In schools, electronic-based learning is promoted, and students are encouraged to use the internet to search for information and expand their knowledge. They are sometimes, or even often, required to complete assignments using computers and to submit them online or in printed form. Therefore, children nowadays are expected to have some basic typing or keyboarding skills when they start primary school, and handwriting is used less and less as a form of communication and literacy learning. This raises a key question: how do the increasingly used keyboarding techniques coupled with reduced handwriting affect people's reading and writing skills? Extensive experimental studies using alphabetic languages such as English have shown that phonological processing skills play a central role in reading acquisition, with impaired reading caused by phonological deficits 1-6 , but writing or hand-copying skills have not been found to predict reading outcomes 7-9. Handwriting and typewriting in alphabetic languages entail similar perceptual and cognitive processes but different attentional and sensory-motor skills. Specifically, both writing modes start from either phonological (generated externally for dictation or internally for composition) or visual inputs (written or printed texts for copying or typewriting), and may involve processes such as speech or visual word recognition, idea formulation, semantic or lexical retrieval, phoneme-grapheme conversion (or spelling process), orthographic long-term and working memory 10 , visual analysis, graphic-motor planning and motoric hand movements 11-13. Furthermore, given these two writing modes both require eye-hand coordination (or visual-motor integration), handwriting requires fine motor skills to trace and reproduce letter shape carefully, whereas typewriting requires searching and touching of the right key on a keyboard when letters are differentiated by the visuospatial location of the keys instead of the graphomotor demands. Handwriting may therefore offer an additional informative memory trace for letter-shape

Abnormal neural response to phonological working memory demands in persistent developmental stuttering

Human brain mapping, Jan 26, 2018

Persistent developmental stuttering is a neurological disorder that commonly manifests as a motor... more Persistent developmental stuttering is a neurological disorder that commonly manifests as a motor problem. Cognitive theories, however, hold that poorly developed cognitive skills are the origins of stuttering. Working memory (WM), a multicomponent cognitive system that mediates information maintenance and manipulation, is known to play an important role in speech production, leading us to postulate that the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying stuttering may be associated with a WM deficit. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we aimed to elucidate brain mechanisms in a phonological WM task in adults who stutter and controls. A right-lateralized compensatory mechanism for a deficit in the rehearsal process and neural disconnections associated with the central executive dysfunction were found. Furthermore, the neural abnormalities underlying the phonological WM were independent of memory load. This study demonstrates for the first time the atypical neural responses to ph...

A Genome-Wide Association Study Identifies Genetic Variants Associated with Mathematics Ability

Scientific reports, Feb 3, 2017

Mathematics ability is a complex cognitive trait with polygenic heritability. Genome-wide associa... more Mathematics ability is a complex cognitive trait with polygenic heritability. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) has been an effective approach to investigate genetic components underlying mathematic ability. Although previous studies reported several candidate genetic variants, none of them exceeded genome-wide significant threshold in general populations. Herein, we performed GWAS in Chinese elementary school students to identify potential genetic variants associated with mathematics ability. The discovery stage included 494 and 504 individuals from two independent cohorts respectively. The replication stage included another cohort of 599 individuals. In total, 28 of 81 candidate SNPs that met validation criteria were further replicated. Combined meta-analysis of three cohorts identified four SNPs (rs1012694, rs11743006, rs17778739 and rs17777541) of SPOCK1 gene showing association with mathematics ability (minimum p value 5.67 × 10(-10), maximum β -2.43). The SPOCK1 gene is loc...

The role of anxiety in stuttering: Evidence from functional connectivity

Neuroscience, Jan 2, 2016

Persistent developmental stuttering is a neurologically based speech disorder associated with cog... more Persistent developmental stuttering is a neurologically based speech disorder associated with cognitive-linguistic, motor and emotional abnormalities. Previous studies investigating the relationship between anxiety and stuttering have yielded mixed results, but it has not yet been examined whether anxiety influences brain activity underlying stuttering. Here, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated the functional connectivity associated with state anxiety in a syllable repetition task, and trait anxiety during rest in adults who stutter (N=19) and fluent controls (N=19). During the speech task, people who stutter (PWS) showed increased functional connectivity of the right amygdala with the prefrontal gyrus (the left ventromedial frontal gyrus and right middle frontal gyrus) and the left insula compared to controls. During rest, PWS showed stronger functional connectivity between the right hippocampus and the left orbital frontal gyrus, and between the lef...

Chinese Character and English Word processing in children's ventral occipitotemporal cortex: fMRI evidence for script invariance

NeuroImage, Jan 21, 2016

Learning to read is thought to involve the recruitment of the left hemisphere ventral occipitotem... more Learning to read is thought to involve the recruitment of the left hemisphere ventral occipitotemporal cortex (OTC) by a process of "neuronal recycling", whereby object processing mechanisms are co-opted for reading. Under the same theoretical framework, it has been proposed that the visual word form area (VWFA) within the OTC processes orthographic stimuli independent of culture and writing systems, suggesting that it is universally involved in written language. However, this "script invariance" has yet to be demonstrated in monolingual readers of two different writing systems studied under the same experimental conditions. Here, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined activity in response to English Words and Chinese Characters in 1st graders in the United States and China, respectively. We examined each group separately and found the readers of English as well as the readers of Chinese to activate the left ventral OTC for their respecti...

Altered functional connectivity in persistent developmental stuttering

Scientific Reports, 2016

Persistent developmental stuttering (PDS) is a speech disorder that impairs communication skills.... more Persistent developmental stuttering (PDS) is a speech disorder that impairs communication skills. Despite extensive research, the core causes of PDS are elusive. Converging evidence from taskinduced neuroimaging methods has demonstrated the contributions of the basal ganglia and the cerebellum to PDS, but such task-state neuroimaging findings are often confounded by behavioral performance differences between subjects who stutter and normal controls. Here, using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging, we investigated functional connectivity within cerebellarcortical and basal ganglia-thalamocortical networks in 16 adults who stutter and 18 age-matched fluent speakers. Seed-to-voxel analysis demonstrated that, compared to controls, adults who stutter showed alternations in functional connectivity of cerebellum to motor cortex as well as connectivity among different locals within cerebellum. Additionally, we found that functional connectivity within cerebellar circuits was significantly correlated with severity of stuttering. The alternations of functional connectivity within basal ganglia-thalamocortical networks were identified as the reduced connectivity of the putamen to the superior temporal gyrus and inferior parietal lobules in adults who stutter. The abnormalities of resting state functional connectivity are assumed to affect language planning and motor execution critical for speaking fluently. Our findings may yield neurobiological cues to the biomarkers of PDS.

Commentary Brain-behavior relations in reading and dyslexia: Implications of Chinese results

Atypical lateralization of phonological working memory in developmental dyslexia

Journal of Neurolinguistics, 2015

Further, the degree of leftward asymmetry correlates positively with reading performance. Thus, t... more Further, the degree of leftward asymmetry correlates positively with reading performance. Thus, the language impairments in dyslexic children appear related to a reduced dominance of the left hemisphere in phonological language functions, which offers clues into the biological dysfunction and possible remediation of developmental dyslexia.

Association study of stuttering candidate genes GNPTAB, GNPTG and NAGPA with dyslexia in Chinese population

BMC Genetics, 2015

Background: Dyslexia is a polygenic speech and language disorder characterized by an unexpected d... more Background: Dyslexia is a polygenic speech and language disorder characterized by an unexpected difficulty in reading in children and adults despite normal intelligence and schooling. Increasing evidence reveals that different speech and language disorders could share common genetic factors. As previous study reported association of GNPTAB, GNPTG and NAGPA with stuttering, we investigated these genes with dyslexia through association analysis. Results: The study was carried out in an unrelated Chinese cohort with 502 dyslexic individuals and 522 healthy controls. In all, 21 Tag SNPs covering GNPTAB, GNPTG and NAGPA were subjected to genotyping. Association analysis was performed on all SNPs. Significant association of rs17031962 in GNPTAB and rs882294 in NAGPA with developmental dyslexia was identified after FDR correction for multiple comparisons. Conclusion: Our results revealed that the stuttering risk genes GNPTAB and NAGPA might also associate with developmental dyslexia in the Chinese population.

Stuttering candidate genes DRD2 but not SLC6A3 is associated with developmental dyslexia in Chinese population

Behavioral and Brain Functions, 2014

Background: Dyslexia is a polygenic developmental disorder characterized by difficulties in readi... more Background: Dyslexia is a polygenic developmental disorder characterized by difficulties in reading and spelling despite normal intelligence, educational backgrounds and perception. Increasing evidences indicated that dyslexia may share similar genetic mechanisms with other speech and language disorders. We proposed that stuttering candidate genes, DRD2 and SLC6A3, might be associated with dyslexia. Methods and results: The study was conducted in an unrelated Chinese cohort with 502 dyslexic cases and 522 healthy controls. In total, 23 Tag SNPs covering the two genes were selected for genotyping through Tagger program. Association analysis was performed on each SNP alone and in haplotypes. One SNP markers in DRD2 showed significant association with developmental dyslexia. Conclusion: These findings indicate that polymorphism of DRD2 gene may be a risk factor of developmental dyslexia in the Chinese population.

Association study of developmental dyslexia candidate genes DCDC2 and KIAA0319 in Chinese population

American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics, 2014

Developmental dyslexia (DD) is characterized by difficulties in reading and spelling independent ... more Developmental dyslexia (DD) is characterized by difficulties in reading and spelling independent of intelligence, educational backgrounds and neurological injuries. Increasing evidences supported DD as a complex genetic disorder and identified four DD candidate genes namely DYX1C1, DCDC2, KIAA0319 and ROBO1. As such, DCDC2 and KIAA0319 are located in DYX2, one of the most studied DD susceptibility loci. However, association of these two genes with DD was inconclusive across different populations. Given the linguistic and genetic differences between Chinese and other populations, it is worthwhile to investigate association of DCDC2 and KIAA0319 with Chinese dyslexic children. Here, we selected 60 tag SNPs covering DCDC2 and KIAA0319 followed by high density genotyping in a large unrelated Chinese cohort with 502 dyslexic cases and 522 healthy controls. Several SNPs (Pmin = 0.0192) of DCDC2 and KIAA0319 as well as a four-maker haplotype (Padjusted = 0.0289, Odds Ratio (OR) = 1.3400) of KIAA0319 showed nominal association with DD. However, none of these results survived Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. Thus, the association of DCDC2 and KIAA0319 with DD in Chinese population should be further validated and their contribution to DD etiology and pathology should be interpreted with caution.

Association of specific language impairment candidate genes CMIP and ATP2C2 with developmental dyslexia in Chinese population

Journal of Neurolinguistics, 2015

association of SLI candidate genes CMIP and ATP2C2 with DD in Chinese population should be furthe... more

Neural basis for processing hidden complexity indexed by small and finite clauses in Mandarin Chinese

Journal of Neurolinguistics, 2015

ABSTRACT In this study we investigate how the human brain processes small clauses and finite clau... more ABSTRACT In this study we investigate how the human brain processes small clauses and finite clauses. Small clauses are instances of ‘simpler’ syntax in the sense that they do not involve operations such as Move and Tense, and have been argued to represent an earlier stage of syntactic evolution before the development of fully-fledged syntax (Bickerton, 1990; Jackendoff 2010; Uriagereka, 2008). Understanding how the brain processes instances of different levels of syntactic complexity may further our understanding of (i) the analytical functions of specific brain regions, and (ii) the distribution of labor in the interpretation or different levels of syntax. To pursue this hypothesis, we ask whether small clauses require different analytical processes than regular syntax. This report provides evidence that they do. In an fMRI study of syntactic processing in a group of Mandarin speakers, small clauses showed greater activation of areas involved in semantic processing. In addition, both small and finite clauses showed substantial activation of areas implicated in syntactic and semantic processing, including significant RH activation. We interpret these findings with reference to Levinson&#39;s articulatory bottleneck: structures which appear simpler in terms of syntactic production may require more effort in parsing.

How the brain reads the Chinese language: recent neuroimaging findings

The Handbook of East Asian Psycholinguistics, 2006

Neural Basis of Dyslexia: A Comparison between Dyslexic and Nondyslexic Children Equated for Reading Ability

Journal of Neuroscience, 2006

Adults and children with developmental dyslexia exhibit reduced parietotemporal activation in fun... more Adults and children with developmental dyslexia exhibit reduced parietotemporal activation in functional neuroimaging studies of phonological processing. These studies used age-matched and/or intelligence quotient-matched control groups whose reading ability and scanner task performance were often superior to that of the dyslexic group. It is unknown, therefore, whether differences in activation reflect simply poorer performance in the scanner, the underlying level of reading ability, or more specific neural correlates of dyslexia. To resolve this uncertainty, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study, with a rhyme judgment task, in which we compared dyslexic children with two control groups: age-matched children and reading-matched children (younger normal readers equated for reading ability or scanner-performance to the dyslexic children). Dyslexic children exhibited reduced activation relative to both age-matched and reading-matched children in the left parietotemporal cortex and five other regions, including the right parietotemporal cortex. The dyslexic children also exhibited reduced activation bilaterally in the parietotemporal cortex when compared with children equated for task performance during scanning. Nine of the 10 dyslexic children exhibited reduced left parietotemporal activation compared with their individually selected age-matched or reading-matched control children. Additionally, normal reading fifth graders showed more activation in the same bilateral parietotemporal regions than normal-reading third graders. These findings indicate that the activation differences seen in the dyslexic children cannot be accounted for by either current reading level or scanner task performance, but instead represent a distinct developmental atypicality in the neural systems that support learning to read.

Functional and morphometric brain dissociation between dyslexia and reading ability

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2007

Language regions of brain are operative in color perception

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2009

China's language input system in the digital age affects children's reading development

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013

Written Chinese as a logographic system was developed over 3,000 y ago. Historically, Chinese chi... more Written Chinese as a logographic system was developed over 3,000 y ago. Historically, Chinese children have learned to read by learning to associate the visuo-graphic properties of Chinese characters with lexical meaning, typically through handwriting. In recent years, however, many Chinese children have learned to use electronic communication devices based on the pinyin input method, which associates phonemes and English letters with characters. When children use pinyin to key in letters, their spelling no longer depends on reproducing the visuo-graphic properties of characters that are indispensable to Chinese reading, and, thus, typing in pinyin may conflict with the traditional learning processes for written Chinese. We therefore tested character reading ability and pinyin use by primary school children in three Chinese cites: Beijing (n = 466), Guangzhou (n = 477), and Jining (n = 4,908). Children with severe reading difficulty are defined as those who were normal in nonverbal IQ but two grades (i.e., 2 y) behind in character-reading achievement. We found that the overall incidence rate of severe reading difficulty appears to be much higher than ever reported on Chinese reading. Crucially, we found that children's reading scores were significantly negatively correlated with their use of the pinyin input method, suggesting that pinyin typing on e-devices hinders Chinese reading development. The Chinese language has survived the technological challenges of the digital era, but the benefits of communicating digitally may come with a cost in proficient learning of written Chinese. child development | developmental dyslexia | language learning