During the COVID-19 pandemic, children worldwide experienced school closures. Several studies have detected a negative impact on reading-related skills in children who experienced these closures during the early stages of reading instruction, but the impact on the reading network in the brain has not been investigated. In the current longitudinal study in a sample of 162 Dutch-speaking children, we found a short-term effect in the growth of phonological awareness in children with COVID-19 school closures compared to children without school closures, but no long-term effects one year later. Similarly, we did not find a long-term effect on the longitudinal development of white matter connectivity in tracts implicated during early reading development. Together, these findings indicate that one year after school closures no effects on the development of phonological awareness and white matter are found, yet it remains an open question whether short-term effects on the reading network could have been present and/or whether other networks (e.g., psychosocial related networks) are potentially more affected.

Early childhood is a critical period for structural brain development as well as an important window for the identification and remediation of reading difficulties. Recent research supports the implementation of interventions in at-risk populations as early as kindergarten or first grade, yet the neurocognitive mechanisms following such interventions remain understudied. To address this, we investigated cortical structure by means of anatomical MRI before and after a 12-week tablet-based intervention in: (1) at-risk children receiving phonics-based training ( n = 29; n = 16 complete pre–post datasets), (2) at-risk children engaging with AC training ( n = 24; n = 15 complete pre–post datasets) and (3) typically developing children ( n = 25; n = 14 complete pre–post datasets) receiving no intervention. At baseline, we found higher surface area of the right supramarginal gyrus in at-risk children compared to typically developing peers, extending previous evidence that early anatomical differences exist in children who may later develop dyslexia. Our longitudinal analysis revealed significant post-intervention thickening of the left supramarginal gyrus, present exclusively in the intervention group but not the active control or typical control groups. Altogether, this study contributes new knowledge to our understanding of the brain morphology associated with cognitive risk for dyslexia and response to early intervention, which in turn raises new questions on how early anatomy and plasticity may shape the trajectories of long-term literacy development.

Some children who develop dyslexia show pre-reading auditory and speech processing difficulties. Furthermore, left auditory cortex structure might be related to family risk for dyslexia rather than to reading outcome. However, it remains unclear to what extent auditory and speech processing and auditory cortex structure mediate the relationship between family risk and reading. In the current longitudinal study, we investigated the role of family risk (measured using parental reading questionnaires) and of pre-reading auditory measures in predicting third grade word reading. We measured auditory and speech processing in 162 pre-readers varying in family risk. In 129 of them, we also acquired structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We quantified surface area and duplication patterns of the bilateral transverse temporal gyri (TTG(s)), and surface area of the bilateral planum temporale (PT). We found effects of pre-reading auditory and speech processing, surface area of the left first TTG and of bilateral PT and of left TTG duplication pattern on later reading. Higher pre-reading values on these measures were predictive of better word reading. Although we also found some evidence for an effect of family risk on auditory and speech processing, these latter measures did not mediate the strong relationship between family risk and later reading. Our study shows the importance of pre-reading auditory and speech processing and of auditory cortex anatomy for later reading. A better understanding of such interrelations during reading development will facilitate early diagnosis and intervention, which can be especially important given the continuity of family risk in the general population.

Numerous studies have investigated brain changes associated with interventions targeting a range of language problems in patients with aphasia. We strive to integrate the results of these studies to examine (1) whether the focus of the intervention (i.e., phonology, semantics, orthography, syntax, or rhythmic-melodic) determines in which brain regions changes occur; and (2a) whether the most consistent changes occur within the language network or outside, and (2b) whether these are related to individual differences in language outcomes. The results of 32 studies with 204 unique patients were considered. Concerning (1), the location of treatment-related changes does not clearly depend on the type of language processing targeted. However, there is some support that rhythmic-melodic training has more impact on the right hemisphere than linguistic training. Concerning (2), we observed that language recovery is not only associated with changes in traditional language-related structures in the left hemisphere and homolog regions in the right hemisphere, but also with more medial and subcortical changes (e.g., precuneus and basal ganglia). Although it is difficult to draw strong conclusions, because there is a lack of systematic large-scale studies on this topic, this review highlights the need for an integrated approach to investigate how language interventions impact on the brain. Future studies need to focus on larger samples preserving subject-specific information (e.g., lesion effects) to cope with the inherent heterogeneity of stroke-induced aphasia. In addition, recovery-related changes in whole-brain connectivity patterns need more investigation to provide a comprehensive neural account of treatment-related brain plasticity and language recovery.