
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, November 16, 1995                   TAG: 9511160043
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

`GLASSES FOR EARS' HELP DYSLEXICS

Scientists have developed a radically different treatment for children with severe language and reading difficulties, one that may have applications for millions of children with dyslexia.

They call it ``glasses for the ears.''

The treatment uses a special form of computer-generated speech in a therapeutic program that is designed to force changes in auditory portions of the children's brains - altering cells that process simple sounds. Just as glasses correct faulty vision, these changes in the auditory cortex sharply improve the children's ability to perceive spoken sounds and to decode written words.

Recent experiments show that after just four weeks of treatment, language-disabled children advanced two full years in their verbal comprehension skills, researchers say. They said the improvements endured after training had stopped. In effect, the children could throw their ``glasses'' away.

The two scientists leading the research, Dr. Paula Tallal of Rutgers University in Newark and Dr. Michael Merzenich of the University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco, said they believed the treatment would help many children and adults with milder forms of language and reading disability - the condition widely known as dyslexia. But Tallal, who is director of the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience at the Newark campus, and Merzenich, who is a professor of otolaryngology and physiology, cautioned that dyslexia has many causes and that not everyone with reading problems would respond to the treatment.

Ten million American children suffer from dyslexia, defined as having great difficulty in reading single words despite normal intelligence and motivation, said Dr. Reid Lyon, director of the dyslexia research program at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. A high percentage of dyslexic children drop out of school and have substance abuse problems. They also tend to have low self-esteem and to have trouble finding jobs. A third of learning disabled adolescents will be arrested three to five years out of school, he said.

by CNB