Behavioral and cortical profiles for family history of dyslexia using binary, continuous, and genetic kinship approaches

Poster Session A - Saturday, April 13, 2024, 2:30 – 4:30 pm EDT, Sheraton Hall ABC

Oliver Lasnick¹ (oliver.lasnick@uconn.edu), Fumiko Hoeft¹; ¹University of Connecticut

This poster showcases work conducted on the unique contributions of family history of dyslexia/reading disorder (RD) to (a) reading-related skills and (b) cortical surface area (SA) in regions of the brain’s reading/language network. We use a diverse sample derived from 8 datasets of up to N=664 children aged 6-16 years (M=9.22, SD=2.01) to analyze the effects of both binary and continuous family history on single word-reading/decoding, phonological processing, receptive vocabulary, and cortical SA in three regions of interest (ROIs): the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), the superior temporal gyrus (STG), and the supramarginal gyrus (SMG). We show that (1) RD family history predicts poorer outcomes in word-reading and vocabulary (but not — counterintuitively — phonological processing); (2) children with family history show different cognitive profiles relative to controls, with an increased correlation between vocabulary and word-reading and decreased correlation between vocabulary and phonological processing; (3) family history is associated with reduced cortical SA in the bilateral SMG of the brain’s reading network, while lower socioeconomic status (coded based on annual income, with the lowest level <20K/yr and the highest >100K/yr) appears to drive reduced cortical SA in the IFG and STG; and (4) parental severity of past RD is the most predictive form of family history for childrens’ untimed word reading ability, while the degree of genetic similarity between children and their relatives with RD is the most predictive form of family history for cortical SA across nearly all analyzed cortical regions.

Topic Area: LANGUAGE: Other