Sally E Shaywitz

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate atomoxetine treatment effects in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD-only), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder with comorbid dyslexia (ADHD+D), or dyslexia only on ADHD core symptoms and on sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT), working memory, life performance, and self-concept.

METHODS: Children and adolescents (10-16 years of age) with ADHD+D (n=124), dyslexia-only (n=58), or ADHD-only (n=27) received atomoxetine (1.0-1.4 ...

CONTEXT: Preclinical studies suggest that estrogen affects neural structure and function in mature animals; clinical studies are less conclusive with many, but not all, studies showing a positive influence of estrogen on verbal memory in postmenopausal women.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects of estrogen on brain activation patterns in postmenopausal women as they performed verbal and nonverbal working memory tasks.

DESIGN: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover ...

BACKGROUND: Dyslexia is now widely believed to be a biologically based disorder that is distinct from other, less specific reading problems. According to this view, reading ability is considered to follow a bimodal distribution, with dyslexia as the lower mode. We hypothesized that, instead, reading ability follows a normal distribution, with dyslexia at the lower end of the continuum.

METHODS AND RESULTS: We used data from the Connecticut Longitudinal Study, a sample survey of 414 ...

OBJECTIVE: The outcome in adolescence of children diagnosed as dyslexic during the early years of school was examined in children prospectively identified in childhood and continuously followed to young adulthood. This sample offers a unique opportunity to investigate a prospectively identified sample of adolescents for whom there is no question of the childhood diagnosis and in whom highly analytic measures of reading and language can be administered in adolescence.

DESIGN: Children ...

OBJECTIVE: Recent studies have suggested that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with abnormalities in basal ganglia and prefrontal cortical functioning. However, these studies have primarily relied upon cognitive tasks that reflect impulse control rather than attentional mechanisms.

METHOD: The authors used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the neural correlates of selective and divided attention in a randomized, double-blind, ...

The authors applied linear dynamic models to longitudinal data to examine the dynamics of reading and cognition from 1st to 12th grade. They used longitudinal data (N=445) from the Connecticut Longitudinal Study (S. E. Shaywitz, B. A. Shaywitz, J. M. Fletcher, & M. D. Escobar, 1990) to map the dynamic interrelations of various scales of the Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children--Revised (i.e., Full, Performance, and Verbal) and specific markers of the Woodcock-Johnson ...

BACKGROUND: Converging evidence indicates a functional disruption in the neural systems for reading in adults with dyslexia. We examined brain activation patterns in dyslexic and nonimpaired children during pseudoword and real-word reading tasks that required phonologic analysis (i.e., tapped the problems experienced by dyslexic children in sounding out words).

METHODS: We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study 144 right-handed children, 70 dyslexic readers, and 74 ...

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate deficits of executive functions in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) classified by type (combined [CT] or predominantly inattentive [IT]) and comorbidity with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and reading disorder (RD).

METHOD: The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) and Tower of Hanoi (TOH) were administered to 28 community volunteers and 359 children (7.5-13.5 years old) divided into ADHD types, RD, and ODD.

RESULTS: ADHD/CT children ...

BACKGROUND: A range of neurobiological investigations shows a failure of left hemisphere posterior brain systems to function properly during reading in children and adults with reading disabilities. Such evidence of a disruption in the normal reading pathways provides a neurobiological target for reading interventions. In this study, we hypothesized that the provision of an evidence-based, phonologically mediated reading intervention would improve reading fluency and the development of ...

Extraordinary progress in functional brain imaging, primarily advances in functional magnetic resonance imaging, now allows scientists to understand the neural systems serving reading and how these systems differ in dyslexic readers. Scientists now speak of the neural signature of dyslexia, a singular achievement that for the first time has made what was previously a hidden disability, now visible. Paralleling this achievement in understanding the neurobiology of dyslexia, progress in ...

BACKGROUND: Functional connectivity analyses of functional magnetic resonance imaging data are a powerful tool for characterizing brain networks and how they are disrupted in neural disorders. However, many such analyses examine only one or a small number of a priori seed regions. Studies that consider the whole brain frequently rely on anatomic atlases to define network nodes, which might result in mixing distinct activation time-courses within a single node. Here, we improve upon ...

Two coordinated experiments using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) investigated whether the brain represents language form (grammatical structure) separately from its meaning content (semantics). While in the scanner, 14 young, unimpaired adults listened to simple sentences that were either nonanomalous or contained a grammatical error (for example, *Trees can grew.), or a semantic anomaly (for example, *Trees can eat.). A same⁄different tone pitch judgment task provided a ...

OBJECTIVE: Considerable controversy surrounds the issue of whether estrogen influences cognitive function in postmenopausal women, and the results are far from consistent. For the most part, the cognitive processes studied have involved memory; to our knowledge, no previous studies have specifically examined the effects of estrogen on women's reading ability.

DESIGN: To investigate reading and short-term memory in postmenopausal women treated with conjugated equine estrogens, we carried ...

OBJECTIVES: Evaluated the effects of atomoxetine on the reading abilities of children with dyslexia only or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and comorbid dyslexia.

METHODS: Children aged 10-16 years (N = 209) met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) criteria for dyslexia only (n = 58), ADHD and comorbid dyslexia (n = 124), or ADHD only (n = 27) and were of normal intelligence. Patients were treated with atomoxetine ...