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Journal Articles

This page lists current research articles in the field of learning disabilites.

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Friday, February 22, 2013
Fawcett & Nicolson's deficit explanation failed to recognize the coexisting role of ADHD in the dyslexic sample they tested for balance.
Friday, February 22, 2013

BACKGROUND:

Previous studies have found that child attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with more parental marital problems. However, the reasons for this association are unclear. The association might be due to genetic or environmental confounds that contribute to both marital problems and ADHD.

METHOD:

Data were drawn from the Australian Twin Registry, including 1,296 individual twins, their spouses, and offspring. We studied adult twins who were discordant for offspring ADHD.Using a discordant twin pairs design, we examined the extent to which genetic and environmental confounds,as well as measured parental and offspring characteristics, explain the ADHD-marital problems association.

RESULTS:

Offspring ADHD predicted parental divorce and marital conflict. The associations were also robust when comparing differentially exposed identical twins to control for unmeasured genetic and environmental factors, when controlling for measured maternal and paternal psychopathology,when restricting the sample based on timing of parental divorce and ADHD onset, and when controlling for other forms of offspring psychopathology. Each of these controls rules out alternative explanations for the association.

CONCLUSION:

The results of the current study converge with those of prior research in suggesting that factors directly associated with offspring ADHD increase parental marital problems.

Friday, February 22, 2013

OBJECTIVE:
To examine the relationship between ADHD medications, study habits, and academic achievement of ADHD-diagnosed undergraduates.

METHOD:
A total of 92 students with a self-reported ADHD diagnosis and a current prescription for ADHD medication were compared with 143 control students in a survey of academic performance.

RESULTS:
Most ADHD students took stimulant medication and said the drugs helped them, yet believed they were worse than other students at planning and completing assignments and avoiding distractions. Although most study habits of ADHD students did not differ from controls, their high school and college GPA (grade point average), and ACT scores were significantly lower, and they withdrew from significantly more classes than did control students. Interestingly, preliminary data suggested that good study habits alone, even without stimulants, could overcome the achievement disparity of ADHD students.

CONCLUSION:
As previously shown for children and adolescents, stimulant medications alone did not eliminate the academic achievement deficit of ADHD undergraduates.

Dr. Levinson's comment:
Believe it or not:The authors state that preliminary data suggests that good study habits alone can overcome the achievement disparity of ADHD students whereas helpful stimulant medications did not. According to Levinson's experience, ADHD is a medical disorder most often complicated by dyslexia or LD. It can be significantly helped by medical and non-medical therapies--but not "cured."

Thursday, March 07, 2013
In adults with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), an extended-release formula of metadoxine, MG01C1, improved total ADHD symptoms scores compared with placebo, according to the results of a randomized phase 2 trial.
Thursday, April 11, 2013

OBJECTIVE:
The existence of neuropsychological deficits has been implicated in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), particularly memory, attention, and executive functions. However, few studies have focused on neuropsychological deficits in the relatives of OCD patients. The aim of this study was to investigate cognitive deficits in OCD patients and their parents.

METHODS:
Forty patients with OCD, 48 parents of these patients, and 87 healthy controls completed a neuropsychological testing battery.

RESULTS:
Both OCD patients and their parents showed impairments in delayed verbal memory and delayed visual memory. Furthermore, they performed worse than healthy controls in problem-solving ability. Dr. Levinson suggests these results support his research indicating a correlation of anxiety disorders with dyslexia and cerebellar-vestibular dysfunction.

CONCLUSION:
Our study demonstrated familial aggregation of delayed memory deficits and impaired problem-solving ability, which may be the potential neuropsychological endophenotypes of hereditary susceptibility to OCD.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

OBJECTIVE:
The authors examined the specificity and course of psychiatric disorders from early childhood through adolescence in offspring of parents with confirmed panic disorder and major depressive disorder.

METHOD:
The authors examined rates of psychiatric disorders at 10-year-follow-up (mean age, 14 years) in four groups: offspring of referred parents with panic and depression (N=137), offspring of referred parents with panic without depression (N=26), offspring of referred parents with depression without panic (N=48), and offspring of nonreferred parents with neither disorder (N=80). Follow-up assessments relied on structured interviews with the adolescents and their mothers; diagnoses were rated present if endorsed by either.

RESULTS:
Parental panic disorder, independently of parental depression, predicted lifetime rates in offspring of multiple anxiety disorders, panic disorder, agoraphobia, social phobia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Parental depression independently predicted offspring bipolar, drug use, and disruptive behavior disorders. Parental panic and depression interacted to predict specific phobia and major depressive disorder. Phobias were elevated in all at-risk groups, and depression was elevated in both offspring groups of parents with depression (with or without panic disorder), with the highest rates in the offspring of parents with depression only. Parental depression independently predicted new onset of depression, parental panic disorder independently predicted new onset of social phobia, and the two interacted to predict new onset of specific phobia and generalized anxiety disorder.

CONCLUSIONS:
At-risk offspring continue to develop new disorders as they progress through adolescence. These results support the need to screen and monitor the offspring of adults presenting for treatment of panic disorder or major depressive disorder.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

In recent years many studies have focused on brain activity differences between fluent and dyslexic readers in order to understand the neural basis of dyslexia. The aim of the current study was to examine the processing of words and pseudo-words in the two hemispheres among dyslexic as compared to fluent readers, using behavioral, and electrophysiological source estimation measures. Two matched groups of university students, fluent and dyslexic readers, performed a lexical decision task in order to examine the processes of word recognition. Dyslexic readers showed overall less activity than fluent readers, mainly during late processing stages. In addition, the distinctive patterns of activity for words and pseudo-words displayed by fluent readers were not apparent in dyslexic readers. In particular, the increased activation of left-hemisphere language areas found in response to pseudo-words was absent in dyslexics. These findings are further evidence of orthographic and phonological impairments in dyslexia.

Two matched groups of university students, fluent and dyslexic readers, showed significant differences in brain activation when reading words and pseudo-words. Dyslexic readers showed overall less brain activity than fluent readers while processing both words & pseudo-words, especially pseudo-words. These findings are further evidence of orthographic and phonological impairments in dyslexia.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

OBJECTIVE:
The role of visual processing deficits in dyslexia remains unclear and continues to stir controversy. Most studies to date have used alphabetic and or other language-dependent patterns. The current study compares how dyslexics and regular readers process non-alphabetic visual patterns.

METHODS:
The stimuli were black and white drawings, 50 meaningful (concrete objects) and 50 meaningless (pseudo-objects with no linguistic name) presented visually on a computer screen. Measures included behavioral accuracy and reaction time, event-related potential (ERP), and low resolution electromagnetic tomography (LORETA). The subjects were 15 dyslexic and 15 aged-matched regular readers.

RESULTS:
The dyslexics exhibited significantly longer reaction time and shorter latencies of P1 and P2 components to both objects and pseudo-objects compared to the regular readers. Data from the LORETA solution analysis indicated significantly different brain activity between the two groups: both exhibited higher left hemisphere activation when viewing objects compared to pseudo-objects; and dyslexics exhibited lower left hemisphere activation when viewing objects and higher right hemisphere activation when viewing pseudo-objects during the early stages of processing.

CONCLUSIONS:
The results support the notion that brain activation of dyslexic readers differs from that of the regular readers when processing non-alphabetic patterns, and that the differences appear from the early stage of processing.

SIGNIFICANCE:
These results emphasize that differences in brain activity between dyslexic and regular readers can be seen even in a non-alphabetic task, and in early stages of processing.
Copyright © 2010 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Brain activity during processing objects and pseudo-objects was significantly different between adult regular and dyslexic readers. The dyslexics exhibited significantly longer reaction time and shorter latencies to both objects and pseudo-objects. And dyslexics exhibited lower left hemisphere brain activation when viewing objects and higher right hemisphere activation when viewing pseudo-objects during the early stages of processing.

Dr Levinson wondered: While very important, these and related data do not yet attempt to clearly distinguish between whether these processing times and brain activation potentials are primary, secondary or resultant dysfunctional vs. compensatory phenomena.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Objective:
The existence of neuropsychological deficits has been implicated in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), particularly memory, attention, and executive functions. However, few studies have focused on neuropsychological deficits in the relatives of OCD patients. The aim of this study was to investigate cognitive deficits in OCD patients and their parents.

Methods:
Forty patients with OCD, 48 parents of these patients, and 87 healthy controls completed a neuropsychological testing battery.

Results:
Both OCD patients and their parents showed impairments in delayed verbal memory and delayed visual memory. Furthermore, they performed worse than healthy controls in problem-solving ability.

Dr Levinson suggests these results support his research indicating a correlation of anxiety disorders with dyslexia and cerebellar-vestibular dysfunction

Conclusion:
Our study demonstrated familial aggregation of delayed memory deficits and impaired problem-solving ability, which may be the potential neuropsychological endophenotypes of hereditary susceptibility to OCD.

Monday, April 15, 2013

The primary reflex system emerges during fetal life and is inhibited during the first year after birth. Our aim was to examine the effects of persistence of this early neurological system on the attainment of core literacy skills in dyslexic and non-dyslexic poor readers. We assessed the prevalence of a persistent primary reflex in a cross-sectional, representative sample of children (n=739) aged 7-9 years old attending mainstream primary school in Northern Ireland using standardised educational tests, and a clinical diagnostic test for a primary reflex (the asymmetrical tonic neck reflex (ATNR)). Multiple regression analyses, involving all of the sample children, revealed that persistence of the ATNR was significantly predictive of attainments in reading (t=-8.34, p<.001), spelling (t=-8.00, p<.001), non-word reading (t=-16.15, p<.001), and verbal IQ (t=-4.71, p<.001). ANOVA tests revealed that there were no differences between the performance of dyslexic and non-dyslexic poor readers on any of the outcome measures (reading (F(1, 289)=0.51, p=.48), spelling (F(1, 289)=0.02, p=.90), non-word reading (F(1, 289)=0.76, p=.38), ATNR level (F(1, 289)=2.54, p=.11)). Further ANOVA tests revealed that males had significantly higher levels of persistent reflex than females (F(1, 737)=15.21, p<.001), and that children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds had significantly higher levels of reflex than children who were not socially disadvantaged (F(1, 737)=20.84, p<.001). The findings suggest that for many children in mainstream schooling, the attainment of core educational skills may be affected by the persistence of a brainstem mediated reflex system that should have been inhibited in the first year after birth. Furthermore, these findings suggest that dyslexia is not a distinct category of poor reading, and that it may be more valid to term all poor readers as dyslexic irrespective of IQ.

The primary reflex system emerges during fetal life and is inhibited during the first year after birth. In a representative samples of 739 children aged 7-9 years, the persistence of a primary reflex (the asymmetrical tonic neck reflex (ATNR)) of brain stem origin correlated with mild and severe dyslexic literary scores. Males and children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds had significantly higher levels of persistent reflex than females.These findings suggest that dyslexia is not a distinct category of poor reading, and that it may be more valid to term all poor readers as dyslexic irrespective of IQ.

According to Dr Levinson: These data suggest that dyslexia is independent of reading scores, that males and the socially disadvantaged may be more developmentally delayed and so manifest higher frequencies of reading/ learning disorders, and even that dyslexia may contribute to becoming or remaining socially disadvantaged. Since the cerebellum significantly modulates midbrain functioning and reflexes, the correlation of these primitive reflexes with poor literacy may highlight an overlooked cerebellar determinant.

Thursday, May 16, 2013
Diabetes mellitus, classified into types 1 and 2, is a chronic disease that shows high comorbidity with psychiatric disorders. Insulin-dependent patients show a higher prevalence of psychiatric disorders than do patients with type 2 diabetes.
Thursday, May 16, 2013

RESULTS: Children with occasional therapy demonstrated higher levels of school phobia when their knowledge was tested than those receiving continuous or no therapy. Girls revealed a higher level of school phobia and knowledge testing fear, regardless of their therapeutic experience.

Dr Levinson's commentary: In this study, no reasons were given for the specific results found. According to my research, all types of phobias are more common in dyslexics since both disorders are triggered by cerebellar-vestibular dysfunctioning. Females are more predisposed to anxiety disorders or intensity whereas the opposite appears true for dyslexia.

Thursday, May 16, 2013
Results: An improvement in social function was present in three of four patients. In conclusion, psychosurgery can be a valuable treatment option for patients with severe OCD in whom other treatments fail.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Results: Research has shown higher rates of trauma exposure and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among persons with severe mental illness (SMI).
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Results: Resilience was a significant inverse predictor of psychological distress but not of PTSD. Resilience is associated with less trauma-related psychological distress and should be considered in assessing risk and protective factors among victims of war-related violence.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Results: Doubt, and its behavioural correlate, checking, is a normal phenomenon of human cognition that is dramatically exacerbated in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Deep brain stimulation in the associative-limbic area of the subthalamic nucleus, a central core of the basal ganglia, improved obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Thursday, May 16, 2013

Results: No significant association of primary headaches was found with asthma and allergic disorders, convulsive episodes, sleep disorders and increased body weight. Overall behavioral disorders as well as anxiety and depression, but not other psychiatric disorders, were more common in children who experienced headache than in controls.

DR LEVINSON'S COMMENT: My clinical studies have similarly noted that Dyslexia, LD, ADHD and related Anxiety and Depressive Disorders of cerebellar-vestibular origin are most frequently correlated to primary headaches because they all share a common neurophysiological origin.

Thursday, May 16, 2013
Limbic system surgery based on initial cingulotomy offers a durable and effective treatment option for appropriately selected patients with severe OCD( and depression) who have not responded to conventional pharmacotherapy or psychotherapy.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Cannabis is the most widely used illicit substance in individuals with anxiety disorders. Among individuals with anxiety disorders, mean mental health summary scores were significantly lower (indicating a lower quality of life) among regular, but not occasional, cannabis users.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Single bouts of moderately intense aerobic exercise may have positive implications for aspects of neurocognitive function and inhibitory control in children with ADHD.
Thursday, May 16, 2013

Trauma is one of the leading reasons for emergency department (ED) visits in children. Hyperactivity, inattentiveness and impulsiveness may contribute to injury proneness.

CONCLUSION: The data suggest that children who make repeated trauma-related ED visits have a predisposition to ADHD, and they may benefit from screening for this disorder while in the ED.

DR LEVINSON'S COMMENT: Because ADHD & DYSLEXIA have cerebellar-vestibular dysfunctioning, impaired balance & dyscoordination or clumsiness may also contribute to accident proneness.

Thursday, May 23, 2013
Although dyslexia was found co-morbid or correlated with ADHD, dyscalculia & developmental coordination disorder, their common cerebellar-vestibular links remain overlooked.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Pooled results suggest that the prevalence of ADHD as defined by DSM-IV criteria is similar in children and adolescents (5.9-7.1 %), irregardless of country or region of the world. These results argue against the hypothesis that ADHD is a cultural construct that is restricted to the United States or any other specific culture.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Anxiety disorders constitute a significant public health problem. Current gold standard treatments are limited in their effectiveness, prompting the consideration of alternative approaches. In this review, we examine the evidence for exercise as an intervention for anxiety disorders. This evidence comes from population studies, studies of nonclinical anxiety reduction, as well as a limited number of studies of clinically anxious individuals. All of these studies provide converging evidence for consistent beneficial effects of exercise on anxiety, and are consistent with a variety of accounts of the mechanism of anxiety reduction with exercise. Further study of clinical populations is encouraged, as are studies of the mechanism of change of exercise interventions, which have the potential to help refine exercise intervention strategies. Likewise, studies that identify moderators of treatment efficacy will assist clinicians in deciding how and for whom to prescribe exercise.
Friday, May 24, 2013

Elevated Background Noise in Patients
With ADHD: A Neuronal Correlate for Inattention
Speaker: Emanuel Bubl, M.D.

EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVE:
At the conclusion of the session, the participant should be able to: 1) Why the eye is so useful in finding a diagnostic marker in psychiatry; 2) Identify the potential neural correlate of inattention; 3) Why there is a need for an objectively measurable surrogate marker in psychiatry

SUMMARY:
Background Inattention and distractibility belong among the core symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); still a neuronal correlate is largely unknown. An elevated noise ratio has been proposed as underlining pathophysiological correlate. Methods 20 patients with the diagnosis of attention deficit disorder and 20 matched healthy subjects were studied. The pattern electroretinogram (PERG) derived noise was obtained in patients with ADHD and a matched control group. The PERG is an electrophysiological measurement for the activity of the retinal ganglion cells. PERGs were recorded in steady state mode in response to checkerboard stimuli at 12 reversals/s. Results Patients with attention deficit disorder displayed significantly elevated noise. The signal correlated highly with the psychometric measures for ADHD especially for inattention.

Conclusions:
Here we report the novel finding of altered visual signal processing in patients with ADHD at a very early neuronal level. The data provide evidence that elevated background noise is associated with inattention and might turn out as neuronal correlate for inattention in ADHD.

Friday, May 31, 2013
A fundamental issue in cognitive neuroscience is the existence of two major, sub-lexical and lexical, reading processes and their possible segregation in the left posterior perisylvian cortex. Using cortical electrostimulation mapping, we identified the cortical areas involved on reading either orthographically irregular words (lexical, “direct” process) or pronounceable pseudowords (sublexical, “indirect” process) in 14 right-handed neurosurgical patients while video-recording behavioral effects. Intraoperative neuronavigation system and Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) stereotactic coordinates were used to identify the localization of stimulation sites. Fifty-one reading interference areas were found that affected either words (14 areas), or pseudo-words (11 areas), or both (26 areas). Forty-one (80%) corresponded to the impairment of the phonological level of reading processes. Reading processes involved discrete, highly localized perisylvian cortical areas with individual variability. MNI coordinates throughout the group exhibited a clear segregation according to the tested reading route; specific pseudo-word reading interferences were concentrated in a restricted inferior and anterior subpart of the left supramarginal gyrus (barycentre x = −68.1; y = −25.9; z = 30.2; Brodmann’s area 40) while specific word reading areas were located almost exclusively alongside the left superior temporal gyrus. Although half of the reading interferences found were nonspecific, the finding of specific lexical or sublexical interferences is new evidence that lexical and sublexical processes of reading could be partially supported by distinct cortical sub-regions despite their anatomical proximity. These data are in line with many brain activation studies that showed that left superior temporal and inferior parietal regions had a crucial role respectively in word and pseudoword reading and were core regions for dyslexia.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Most studies today agree about the link between visual-attention and oculomotor control during reading: attention seems to affect saccadic programming, that is, the position where the eyes land in a word. Moreover, recent studies show that visuo-attentional processes are strictly linked to normal and impaired reading. In particular, a large body of research has found evidence of defective visuo-attentional processes in dyslexics. What do eye movements tell us about visuo-attentional deficits in developmental dyslexia? The purpose of this paper is to explore the link between oculomotor control and dyslexia, taking into account its heterogeneous manifestation and comorbidity. Clinical perspectives in the use of the eye-movements approach to better explore and understand reading impairments are discussed.
Friday, May 31, 2013
It is apparent that individuals using text abbreviations as a written convention is a continuingly growing phenomenon. This special writing convention has been referred to as textism usage. However, there is surprisingly little research investigating the impacts of textism use on dyslexic children's cognitive abilities associated with literacy skills. Thus, the relation between textism use, phonological awareness, as well as morphological awareness is not yet clear. This issue is critical and urgent because no conclusive guidance is available for practitioners or educators to refine instructional strategies. Furthermore, given that prior researchers focus mainly on alphabetic language, little research draws attention on non-alphabetic language, in which morphological awareness seems rather significant than phonological awareness. In this study a total of 57 participants across six elementary schools in Taiwan were recruited and were formed into three groups. To effectively collect the textisms used by the participants, this study adopted Facebook as the tool to store the messages because of its high penetration rate of 51 percent in Taiwan. Findings of this study suggested that dyslexic children may get rid of the identification, which might encourage them shift their focuses from others' judgment to selecting a proper textism. To use the textism appropriately requires the dyslexic children realize the meaning of the textism and memorize the spelling/writing convention. Consequently, the dyslexia group in this study performed as well as reading-age group in word recognition and meaning recognition. It seemed that dyslexic children preferred to use contraction, symbol, and combined word. These categories of textism are L-S (logography to semantics) in nature.
Friday, May 31, 2013
This study presents an examination of learner-generated drawing for different reading comprehension subtypes of dyslexic students and control students. The participants were 22 phonological dyslexic students, 20 orthographic dyslexic students, 21 double-deficit dyslexic students, and 45 age-, gender-, and IQ-matched control students. The major evaluation tools included word recognition task, orthographic task, phonological awareness task, and scenery texts and questions. Comparisons of the four groups of students showed differences among phonological dyslexia, orthographic dyslexia, double-deficit dyslexia, and the chronological age control groups in pre- and posttest performance of scenery texts. Differences also existed in relevant questions and the effect of the learner-generated drawing method. The pretest performance showed problems in the dyslexic samples in reading the scenery texts and answering relevant questions. The posttest performance revealed certain differences among phonological dyslexia, orthographic dyslexia, double-deficit dyslexia, and the chronological age control group. Finally, all dyslexic groups obtained a great effect from using the learner-generated drawing, particularly orthographic dyslexia. These results suggest that the learner-generated drawing was also useful for dyslexic students, with the potential for use in the classroom for teaching text reading to dyslexic students.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
We examined the prevalence of childhood (≤ 18 years) physical and sexual abuse reported among patients admitted to the psychiatric inpatient service and the differential rates of this abuse associated with psychiatric diagnoses. This study consisted of a retrospective chart review of 603 patients admitted to a psychiatric ward during a period of 1 year at Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center who had data on childhood physical and sexual abuse. The prevalence of reported childhood physical or sexual abuse in this inpatient clinical population was 19.4% (117/603). The prevalence of reported physical abuse was 22.6% (19/84) in the women and 12.0% (62/519) in the men (p = 0.008); the prevalence of sexual abuse was 33.3% (28/84) in the women and 7.7% (40/519) in the men (p < 0.0001). More patients with depressive disorders reported sexual abuse than did those without these disorders. More patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) reported physical and sexual abuse than did those without these disorders. Stratifying by race, sex, and diagnoses, multivariate analyses showed that the women with PTSD had a greater likelihood to report physical abuse (p = 0.03) and sexual abuse histories (p = 0.008) than did the women without PTSD. The men with substance-induced mood disorder (p = 0.01) were more likely to report physical abuse compared with the men without substance-induced mood disorder. Screening for abuse in patients with depressive disorders and PTSD is warranted to tailor individualized treatments for these patients. More research is needed to better understand the potential implications of childhood abuse on psychiatric diagnoses.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
A highly original ADHD study that was just presented at the American Psychiatric Association's 2013 Annual Meeting offers new and intriguing diagnostic possibilities about ADHD/retina research. In addition, this study's finding supports the cerebellar signal-scrambling theory of dyslexia and related ADHD. This theory was initially proposed by Dr. Harold Levinson and was supported by Nobel Laureate cerebellar neurophysiologist Sir John Eccles.