SEEING HEARD WORDS - NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL AND NEUROIMAGING EVIDENCE OF ABERRANT BRAIN ORGANIZATION IN DEVELOPMENTAL DYSLEXIA

Developmental dyslexia is typically associated with major difficulties in tasks of phonological awareness, which require to identify and vol untarily manipulate the sounds of words. We report the case of a young adult suffering from disabling sequellae of severe childhood dyslexia , in whom extensive neurospychological assessment as well as brain ima ging using Positron Emission Tomography (PET) provide converging evide nce suggesting an aberrant utilization of visual-orthographic procedur es to solve such purely phonological tasks given in the auditory modal ity. These observations suggest new insights into the anatomofunctiona l organization of the dyslexic brain.