Much current evidence suggests that dyslexia, a reading dysfunction which has historically been attributed to a disruption in phonological processing, is associated with a number of other sensory deficiencies. Specifically, individuals with dyslexia often have difficulty discriminating different sensory events over time, even when they are not speech related.
We are interested in how this abnormality relates to multisensory processing, given that learning to read and the acquisition of phonological skills requires a fundamental connection between multiple senses.
Ongoing studies in our lab, in collaboration with members of Radiology and Neuropsychology, are investigating how the integration of cross-modal information is disrupted in these individuals using both classic psychophysics and modern imaging (functional MRI) techniques.
Our goal is to use this information to better understand how multisensory processing occurs in both the typical and developmentally atypical brain.