Academic Research

SAS is an international organisation dedicated to researching, developing and providing effective neuro-sensory intervention techniques that strengthen sensory processing, language, memory and understanding and that enhance physical abilities, speech, reading and writing and that improve behaviour, social skills and emotional well-being.

Our methodology is firmly based on scientifically proven principles and we gather data on the effectiveness of our programmes through six distinct routes:

• Pre and post programme assessment test results;
• Observations by our trained staff during the assessment and programme delivery stages;
• Anecdotal feedback by clients, parents, caretakers or teachers, both during and post programmes;
• Standardised post-programme feedback forms from clients or parents (see SAS Statistics);
• Independent feedback from educational and medical establishments involved in SAS research projects (see below);
• Independent research by recognised academic research establishments such as Teaching Hospitals and Universities (see below).
  

In addition to researching the effectiveness of the SAS methodology, we also conduct desk research on how our methodology impacts on the processing in the brain and its associated improvements in ability, behaviour and emotional state.

On this page we outline some of the research programmes that have evaluated the SAS methodology, together with a number of links to other relevant research.

Quick Links:

• SAS - Autism - University, Ankara, Turkey
• SAS - Learning Enhancement - Primary School, U.K.
• SAS - Auditory Processing - Ufuk University, Ankara, Turkey
• SAS - Autism/ADHD - Special Needs Secondary School, U.K.
• Other Relevant Research

SAS | Autism | University, Ankara, Turkey | November - December 2012 ... ongoing

As part of an ongoing collaboration with a University in Ankara, Turkey, an initial pilot reseach programme was initiated at their Occupational Therapy Department.

Led by the head of the department the study comprised of two randomly selected groups of children diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder, aged 4 to 15 years. One group received only Sensory Integration Therapy, while the second group received Sensory Integration Therapy plus a SAS Neuro-Sensory Programme - in total 22 children completed the whole programme. The SAS Neuro-Sensory Programme was provided for one hour each day, five days a week over four weeks, 20 hours in total.

Initial feedback indicates a significant decrease in anxiety levels and a reduction in visual, auditory and tactile sensitivities for the second group receiving the SAS Neuro-Sensory Programme, compared with the first group that received Sensory Integration Therapy only. The University is currently collating all client and staff feedback forms plus the pre- and post-assessment test results and expects to publish a full report soon.

SAS | Learning Enhancement | Primary School, U.K. | June - December 2012 ... ongoing

The school is a voluntary controlled CofE Primary School with around 200 pupils. An initial pilot programme with four pupils aged 7 to 9 was completed during the Summer 2012 term. Following positive feedback from the children, parents and teachers it was decided to make this a continuous research project with six children taking the programme at any one time.

A special SAS Schools programme was developed to allow for sessions of 40 minutes in duration. The pupils follow the programme 5 days a week, Monday to Friday, over a 5 week period. The 25 sessions equate to just under 17 hours of listening time in total. The programmes employ the same techniques as used by SAS Centres and Practitioners and include music, language and tones. All pupils receive the same generalised programme.

All sessions are administered by an SAS trained Teaching Assistant, who receives weekly supervision by an experienced SAS Accredited Practitioner. The school carefully monitors progress, records academic and personal skills attainment and collates child, teacher and parent feedback with the view of publishing an objective and independent report on the SAS methodology.

SAS | Auditory Processing | Ufuk University, Ankara, Turkey | May 2012

A pilot research project was conducted at the Ear Nose and Throat Department at Ufuk University Hospital under the auspices of Dr. Rıdvan Ege and Prof. Dr. Sinan Kocatürk and his team Doç. Dr. Kaan Beriat and audiologist Figen Bağcı.

The project started with a group of 10 randomly selected patients, all with significant word discrimination problems, not considered to be caused by the hearing loss they all suffered from. Due the the advanced age of some of the patients, only three were able to complete the full programme.

Age and Gender Distribution: The mean age was 50, two male and one female.

General Condition: All three patients suffered from mild to severe hearing loss, however this was not considered to be the primary cause of their significant word discrimination problems by the ENT Specialists at the hospital.

Implementation: At the hospital the patients listened for one hour each day to a SAS Neuro-Sensory Programme, 18 hours in total over a three week period. During their listening sessions the patients were allowed to read books, newspapers or magazines.

Objective: To establish if improvements in Word Discrimination ability can be achieved through the application of a SAS Neuro-Sensory programme.

Assessments: Pre- and post-programme Word Discrimination tests were applied under the supervision of Dr. Rıdvan Ege of the Ear, Nose and Throat Department at Ufuk University Hospital.

Results: The pre- and post-programme test results are provided in the table below.

Note: Results of a word discrimination test conducted under controlled conditions at Ufuk University Hospital by audiologist Figen Bağcı.

SAS | Autism/ADHD | Special Needs Secondary School, U.K. | May 2010 - Present

The school is a Special Needs Secondary School with about 150 students with moderate learning difficulties, 11 to 19 years of age. An research project with 16 students was instigated during the Summer term of 2010. Eight students with either AD/HD or autism received the programme, while a balanced control group of eight other students were tested pre- and post-programme, but were at this stage not offered the listening time.

The students received standard SAS programmes of 60 minutes in duration. The students followed the programme 5 days a week, Monday to Friday for 16 hours in total. The programmes employed the same techniques as used by SAS Centres and Practitioners and included music, language and tones. All students received the same generalised programme.

All sessions were administered by an SAS trained Teaching Assistant. The school carefully monitored progress, recorded academic and personal skills attainment pre- and post-programme and collated child, teacher and parent feedback. The positive improvements in academic achievement, behaviour and emotional well-being of the listening group compared to the control group were such that the school decided to offer the programmes on a continuous basis to selected students, starting with the control group.

Other Relevant Research

Quick Links:

• Neuroplasticity
• Music and the Brain
• Lateralisation
• Learning
• Attention Deficit
• Language
• Auditory Processing Disorders
• Dyslexia and Dyscalculia
• Asperger's Syndrome
• Autism
• Bipolar Disorder
• Alzheimer's Disease

Neuroplasticity

The Plastic Human Brain Cortex.
“The brain, as the source of human behavior, is by design molded by environmental changes and pressures, physiologic modifications, and experiences. This is the mechanism for learning and for growth and development—changes in the input of any neural system, or in the targets or demands of its efferent connections, lead to system reorganization that might be demonstrable at the level of behavior, anatomy, and physiology and down to the cellular and molecular levels.”

Source: Annu. Rev. Neurosci. 2005.28:377-401.
Authors: Pascual-Leone A, Amedi A, Fregni F, Merabet LB.
Establishment: Center for Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA.
Link: http://brain.huji.ac.il/publications/Pascual-Leone_Amedi_et%20al%20Ann%20Rev%20Neurosci%2005.pdf

Neuroplasticity

Navigation-related structural change in the hippocampi of taxi drivers.
“It seems that there is a capacity for local plastic change in the structure of the healthy adult human brain in response to environmental demands.”

Source: PNAS April 11, 2000 vol. 97 no. 8 4398-4403.
Authors: Eleanor A. Maguire, David G. Gadian, Ingrid S. Johnsrude, Catriona D. Good, John Ashburner, Richard S. J. Frackowiak, and Christopher D. Frith.
Establishments: Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, Institute of Neurology, University College London, London WC1N 3BG, U.K. and Radiology and Physics Unit, Institute of Child Health, University College London, London WC1N 1EH, U.K.
Link: http://www.pnas.org/content/97/8/4398.full.pdf+html

Neuroplasticity

Human Central Auditory Plasticity Associated With Tone Sequence Learning.
“Consistent with prior studies of auditory plasticity in animals and humans, tone sequence learning induced rapid neurophysiological plasticity in the human central auditory system.”

Source: Learning & Memory 11:162–171, 2004.
Authors: Gottselig J.M., Brandeis D., Hofer-Tinguely G., Borbely A.A., Achermann P.
Establishment: Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology and Institute of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Zurich, Switzerland.
Link: http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC379686/pdf/0110162.pdf

Neuroplasticity

Brain neuroplasticity in occipital areas in blind teenagers.
“Conclusion: Therefore one can speculate if systematic and organized repetition of tactile stimuli in blind subjects leads to a greater neuroplasticity which expands towards occipital areas, largely responsible for human vision.”

Source: Rev Neurol. 2010 Mar 3;50 Suppl 3:S19-23 [Article in Spanish].
Authors: Ortiz T, Poch-Broto J, Requena C, Santos JM, Martínez A, Barcia-Albacar JA.
Establishment: Departamento de Psiquiatría, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Espana.
Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20200843

Music and the Brain

Neural Dynamics of Event Segmentation in Music: Converging Evidence for Dissociable Ventral and Dorsal Networks
“The research team showed that music engages the areas of the brain involved with paying attention, making predictions and updating the event in memory”, “The team used music to help study the brain’s attempt to make sense of the continual flow of information the real world generates, a process called event segmentation.”

Source: Neuron 55, 521–532, August 2, 2007.
Authors: Sridharan D, Levitin DJ, Chafe CH, Berger J, Menon V.
Establishments: Stanford University, Stanford, USA , McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
Link: http://daniellevitin.com/levitinlab/articles/2007-Sridharan-Neuron.pdf

Music and the Brain

Perinatal exposure to music protects spatial memory against callosal lesions.
“The present findings may offer important insights into music-induced neuroplasticity, relevant to brain development and neurorehabilitation.”

Source: Int J Dev Neurosci. 2010 Feb;28(1):105-9. Epub 2009 Sep 6.
Authors: Amagdei A, Balteş FR, Avram J, Miu AC.
Establishment: Program of Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, Babes-Bolyai University, 37 Republicii St., Cluj-Napoca, CJ 400015, Romania.
Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19737604

Brain Lateralisation

Long distance communication in the human brain: timing constraints for inter-hemispheric synchrony and the origin of brain lateralization.
“Analysis of corpus callosum fiber composition reveals that inter-hemispheric transmission time may put constraints on the development of inter-hemispheric synchronic ensembles, especially in species with large brains like humans. In order to overcome this limitation, a subset of large-diameter callosal fibers are specialized for fast interhemispheric transmission, particularly in large-brained species. Nevertheless, the constraints on fast interhemispheric communication in large-brained species can somehow contribute to the development of ipsilateral, intrahemispheric networks, which might promote the development of brain lateralization.”

Authors: Aboitiz F., Lopez J., Montiel J.
Establishment: Departamento de Psiquiatría and Centro de Investigaciones Médicas, Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, and Millenium Nucleus for Integrative Neuroscience, Santiago, Chile.
Link: http://www.scielo.cl/pdf/bres/v36n1/art07.pdf

Brain Lateralisation

Auditory Processing and Hemispheric Specialization.
“We have recently shown that the area of cortex involved in auditory processing is larger than what was once thought (Poremba et al., 2003) and is only slightly smaller in its extent than the visual system.” “This study also delineated areas of overlap between the auditory and visual processing systems allowing us to explore the boundaries of sound only, versus sound plus visual information which is important in our seamless integration of our everyday sensory world.”

Source: American Psychological Association, Psychological Science Agenda, October 2004.
Author: Amy Poremba, PhD.
Establishment: Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Area at the University of Iowa, USA.
Link: www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2004/10/poremba.aspx

Brain Lateralisation

Functional Asymmetry for Auditory Processing in Human Primary Auditory Cortex.
“Structural asymmetries in the supratemporal plane of the human brain are often cited as the anatomical basis for the lateralization of language predominantly to the left hemisphere. However, similar asymmetries are found for structures mediating earlier events in the auditory processing stream, suggesting that functional lateralization may occur even at the level of primary auditory cortex. We tested this hypothesis using functional magnetic resonance imaging to evaluate human auditory cortex responses to monaurally presented tones. Relative to silence, tones presented separately to either ear produced greater activation in left than right Heschl’s gyrus, the location of primary auditory cortex.”

Source: The Journal of Neuroscience, December 17, 2003 • 23(37):11516 –11522.
Authors: Devlin J.T., Raley J., Tunbridge E., Lanary K., Floyer-Lea A., Narain C., Cohen I., Behrens T., Jezzard P., Matthews P.M., Moore D.R.
Establishments: Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain, Department of Clinical Neurology, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, U.K. and Medical Research Council Institute of Hearing Research, University Park, Nottingham, U.K.
Link: www.jneurosci.org/content/23/37/11516.full.pdf

Brain Lateralisation

Bidirectional Connectivity between Hemispheres Occurs at Multiple Levels in Language Processing But Depends on Sex.
“These results support a model of cooperation between hemispheres, with asymmetric interhemispheric and intrahemispheric connectivity consistent with the left hemisphere specialization for phonological processing. Finally, we found greater interhemispheric connectivity in girls compared to boys, consistent with the hypothesis of a more bilateral representation of language in females than males. However, interhemispheric communication was associated with slow performance and low verbal intelligent quotient within girls. We suggest that females may have the potential for greater interhemispheric cooperation, which may be an advantage in certain tasks. However, in other tasks too much communication between hemispheres may interfere with task performance.”

Source: The Journal of Neuroscience, September 1, 2010, 30(35):11576 –11585.
Authors: Bitan T., Lifshitz A., Breznitz Z., Booth J.R.
Establishments: Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders and Department of Learning Disabilities, Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel and Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA.
Link: www.jneurosci.org/content/30/35/11576.full.pdf

Brain Lateralisation

Left auditory cortex is involved in pairwise comparisons of the direction of frequency modulated tones.
“Evaluating series of complex sounds like those in speech and music requires sequential comparisons to extract task-relevant relations between subsequent sounds. With the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we investigated whether sequential comparison of a specific acoustic feature within pairs of tones leads to a change in lateralized processing in the auditory cortex (AC) of humans. ... The results suggest a division of labor between the two hemispheres such that the FM direction of each individual tone is mainly processed in the right AC whereas the sequential comparison of this feature between tones in a pair is probably performed in the left AC.”

Source: Frontiers in Neuroscience, 7:115. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2013.00115 - 18 June 2013.
Authors: Angenstein N., Brechmann A.
Establishment: Special Lab Non-Invasive Brain Imaging, Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Magdeburg, Germany.
Link: www.frontiersin.org/Auditory_Cognitive_Neuroscience/10.3389/fnins.2013.00115/abstract

Ear Dominance

New research demonstrates humans' right ear preference for listening.
“According to the authors, taken together, these results confirm a right ear/left hemisphere advantage for verbal communication and distinctive specialization of the two halves of the brain for approach and avoidance behavior.”

Source: 23 June 2009, Springer Science + Business Media.
Authors: Tommasi L., Marzoli, D.
Establishment: Institute: University "Gabriele d'Annunzio", Chieti, Italy.
Link: http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=58887&CultureCode=en

Learning

The role of the corpus callosum in the perception of reversible figures in children.
“These results support the hypothesis that the rate of reversal between two interpretations of a bistable stimulus may be partly mediated by the corpus callosum.”

Source: Vision Res. 2008 Oct;48(23-24):2451-5. Epub 2008 Sep 24.
Authors: Fagard J, Sacco S, Yvenou C, Domellöf E, Kieffer V, Tordjman S, Moutard ML, Mamassian P.
Establishment: Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception (CNRS UMR 8158), Université Paris Descartes, Centre Biomédical des Saints Pères, 75006 Paris, France.
Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18775448

Learning Differences

Interhemispheric Transfer of Tactile Information by Learning Disabled Children.
“Analyses indicated the number of uncrossed errors and crossed errors were significantly greater for the verbal response mode as compared to the non-verbal response mode. Results suggested that younger learning disabled children may experience greater difficulty using a verbal response mode on a task which is inferred to require inter-hemispheric transfer of information.”

Source: April 1987, paper presented at the Annual Conference of the American Educational Research Association, Washington DC, 20-24 April 1987.
Author: Donna F. Berlin.
Establishment: The Ohio State University at Newark USA, College of Education.
Link: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/detail?accno=ED289291

Creativity

White matter structures associated with creativity: evidence from diffusion tensor imaging.
“As a whole, these findings indicate that integrated white matter tracts underlie creativity. These pathways involve the association cortices and the corpus callosum, which connect information in distant brain regions and underlie diverse cognitive functions that support creativity. Thus, our results are congruent with the ideas that creativity is associated with the integration of conceptually distant ideas held in different brain domains and architectures and that creativity is supported by diverse high-level cognitive functions, particularly those of the frontal lobe.”

Source: Neuroimage. 2010 May 15;51(1):11-8. Epub 2010 Feb 17.
Authors: Takeuchi H, Taki Y, Sassa Y, Hashizume H, Sekiguchi A, Fukushima A, Kawashima R.
Establishment: Division of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Department of Functional Brain Imaging, Tohoku University 4-1 Seiryo-cho, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8575, Japan.
Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20171286

Attention Deficit

The Missing Link: The Role of Interhemispheric Interaction in Attentional Processing.
“Although inter-hemispheric interaction via the callosum is most often conceived as a mechanism for transferring sensory information and coordinating processing between the hemispheres, it will be argued here that the callosum also plays an important role in attentional processing.”

Source: Brain and Cognition 36, 128–157 (1998).
Author: Marie T. Banich.
Establishment: Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, IL 61801, USA.
Link: http://psych.colorado.edu/~mbanich/p/science6.pdf

Attention Deficit

Interhemispheric interaction expands attentional capacity in an auditory selective attention task.
“In the current experiment, we investigate whether IHI (Inter-Hemispheric Interaction) increases attentional capacity outside the visual system by manipulating the selection demands of an auditory temporal pattern-matching task. We find that IHI expands attentional capacity in the auditory system. This suggests that the benefits of requiring IHI derive from a functional increase in attentional capacity rather than the organization of a specific sensory modality.”

Source: Exp Brain Res. 2009 Apr;194(2):317-22. doi: 10.1007/s00221-009-1739-z. Epub 2009 Mar 1.
Authors: Scalf PE, Banich MT, Erickson AB.
Establishment: Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, IL 61801, USA.
Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19252903

Language

The acquisition of language by children.
“... we describe three recent lines of research that examine language learning, comprehension, and genesis by children.”

Source: 12874–12875 PNAS, November 6, 2001, vol. 98, no. 23.
Authors: Saffran J.R., Senghas A., Trueswell J.C.
Establishment: University of Wisconsin, Madison; Barnard College of Columbia University, New York; University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.
Link: http://www.pnas.org/content/98/23/12874.full

Language

Sex specific effect of prenatal testosterone on language lateralization in children.
“The results suggest that in girls higher prenatal testosterone exposure facilitates left hemisphere language processing, whereas in boys it reduces the information transfer via the corpus callosum.”

Source: Neuropsychologia. 2010 Jan;48(2):536-40. Epub 2009 Oct 24.
Authors: Lust JM, Geuze RH, Van de Beek C, Cohen-Kettenis PT, Groothuis AG, Bouma A.
Establishment: Clinical and Developmental NeuroPsychology, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19857503

Language

A review and synthesis of the first 20 years of PET and fMRI studies of heard speech, spoken language and reading.
“Modern functional brain imaging with PET and fMRI provides a new perspective on the organization of language in the human brain; a better definition of the distributed nature of the brain circuits involved, an appreciation of the flexibility of these circuits in adapting to the different aspects of speech production, an identification of areas not previously associated with the cognitive aspects of language, and a new understanding of the implications of specific brain lesions. (Raichle, 1996).”

Source: Neuroimage. 2012 August 15; 62(2): 816–847.
Author: Price, C.J.
Establishment: Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, UCL, London, WC1N 3BG, UK.
Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3398395

Stuttering

Bimanual Handwriting Reveals Delayed Interhemispheric Integration in Childhood Stuttering.
“Differences in bimanual handwriting organization and in mirror reversals of digits and letters suggest the hypothesis that interhemispheric integration emerges around age 9 for non-stutterers, but remains immature at least through age 15 for stutterers.”

Source: Developmental Neuropsychology, Volume 8, Issue 4, 1992.
Authors: Jay R. Greinera & Hiram E. Fitzgerald.
Establishment: Department of Psychology and Institute for Children, Youth, and Families, Michigan State University, USA.
Link: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/87565649209540534

Auditory Processing Disorders

Guidelines for the Diagnosis, Treatment and Management of Children and Adults with Central Auditory Processing Disorder.
“Intervention for (C)APD has received much attention recently due to advances in neuroscience demonstrating the key role of auditory plasticity in producing behavioral change through intensive training. With the documented potential of a variety of auditory training procedures to enhance auditory processes, the opportunity now exists to change the brain, and in turn, the individual’s auditory behavior through a variety of multidisciplinary approaches that target specific auditory deficits. Customizing therapy to meet the client’s profile (e.g., age, cognition, language, intellectual capacity, comorbid conditions) and functional deficits typically involves a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches.”

Source: Page 3, American Academy of Audiology Clinical Practice Guidelines, 8/24/2010.
Establishment: American Academy of Audiology.
Link: http://www.audiology.org/resources/documentlibrary/documents/capd%20guidelines%208-2010.pdf

Auditory Processing

Binaural integration of melodic patterns.
“In normal listening, the information arriving at our two ears is never identical; and the running cross-correlations performed on this information are very important for a number of functions.”

Source: Perception & Psychophysics, 1979, 25, 399-405.
Authors: Deutsch D.
Establishment: Center for Human Information Processing, University of California, San Diego La Jolla, USA.
Link: http://deutsch.ucsd.edu/pdf/PandP-1979_25_399-405.pdf

Frequency Discrimination

Frequency Discrimination, the Mismatch Negativity ERP, and Cognitive Abilities
“The present study would suggest that frequency discrimination ability may be related to intelligence.”

Source: Thesis, April 2008.
Authors: Langille K.
Establishment: The Department of Psychology, St. Thomas University, Fredericton, Canada.
Link: http://biopsyc.stu.ca/new/graduates/Papers/KayleeLangilleThesis.pdf

Frequency Discrimination

Auditory frequency discrimination in adult developmental dyslexics.
“Developmental dyslexics reportedly discriminate auditory frequency poorly.”

Source: Perception & Psychophysics, 2002, 64 (2), 169-179
Authors: France S.J., Rosner B.S., Hansen P.C., Calvin C., Talcott J.B., Richardson A.J., Stein J.F.
Establishment: University of Oxford, Oxford, England
Link: http://www.physiol.ox.ac.uk/~jfs/pdf/france.pdf

Dyslexia

Treatment of developmental dyslexia: A review.
“... this article reviews the aetiology of dyslexia sub-types, the neuropsychological rationale for treatment, the treatment techniques and the outcomes of treatment research. The possible mechanisms underlying the effects of treatment are discussed.”

Source: Pediatric Rehabilitation, January 2006; 9(1): 3–13.
Author: Dirk J. Bakker.
Establishment: Department of Clinical Neuropsychology, Free University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Link: http://integrativehealthconnection.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Treatment-of-developmental-dyslexia-A-review.pdf

Dyslexia

Lateralization of auditory-cortex functions.
“Over the last decades, several studies have reported that missing functional and anatomical hemispheric asymmetry might underlie some relatively common neurocognitive disorders. For instance, dyslexia has been related to difficulty in processing rapid temporal information even when phonetic information is not provided. Tallal and her colleagues have repeatedly shown that individuals with specific language impairment (SLI) and reading disorders have problems perceiving and processing rapidly occurring speech sounds, particularly the initial consonant-segments in simple consonant–vowel syllable stimuli.”

Source: Brain Research Reviews 43 (2003) 231– 246.
Author: Tervaniemia M., Hugdahl K.
Establishments: Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, Institut fur Allgemeine Psychologie, Leipzig Universitat, Leipzig, Germany, Department of Biological and Medical Psychology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
Link: www.brainmusic.org/EducationalActivitiesFolder/Tervaniemi_lateralization2003.pdf

Dyslexia

Interhemispheric sensorimotor integration in pointing movements: a study on dyslexic adults.
“In the present study, we focused on three of the deficits which have been thought to accompany and to a certain extent, to explain dyslexia: an abnormal pattern of hemispheric asymmetry, abnormal hemispheric communication, and abnormal motor control.”

Source: Neuropsychologia. 2002;40(7):827-34.
Authors: Velay JL, Daffaure V, Giraud K, Habib M.
Establishment: Laboratoire de Neurobiologie Cellulaire et Fonctionnelle, CNRS, 13402 Marseille Cedex 20, France.
Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11900733

Writing

Ontogenesis of laterality in 3- to 10-yr.-old children: increased unimanual independence grounded on improved bimanual motor function.
“Changes in intermanual coupling with increasing unimanual independence represent expression of changing interhemispheric integration across groups. This promotes optimal laterality and task distribution between the hands. Maturation of the corpus callosum is inferred to be a factor in these ontogenetic changes which ultimately lead to optimal left hemisphere specialization for actions such as fluent writing.”

Source: Percept Mot Skills. 2009 Aug;109(1):3-29.
Authors: van Grunsven W, Njiokiktjien C, Vuylsteke-Wauters M, Vranken M.
Establishment: Institute for Remediation of Learning Disabilities, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19831084

Dyscalculia

Modulating Neuronal Activity Produces Specific and Long-Lasting Changes in Numerical Competence.
“The polarity of the brain stimulation specifically enhanced or impaired the acquisition of automatic number processing and the mapping of number into space, both important indices of numerical proficiency. The improvement was still present 6 months after the training.”

Source: Current Biology 20, 2016–2020, November 23, 2010.
Authors: Cohen Kadosh R, Soskic S, Iuculano T, Kanai R, Walsh V.
Establishments: University of Oxford and University College London, U.K.
Link: http://download.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/PIIS0960982210012340.pdf

Asperger's Syndrome

Sensory Processing Issues Associated With Asperger Syndrome: A Preliminary Investigation.
“Therefore, it is highly likely that children with Asperger syndrome will have poor auditory processing on the basis of the Sensory Profile. These findings are consistent with other reports that children with Asperger syndrome have difficulty with auditory processing. Bettison (1996) reported specific sensitivity to sounds that led to distress. Bettison then provided an auditory intervention, and participants demonstrated significantly improved behavior over a 12-month period in conditions of auditory training or listening to music, suggesting that interventions addressing sensory processing differences may be fruitful once a pattern of sensory processing is identified.”

Source: American Journal of Occupational Therapy January/February 2002 vol. 56 no. 1 97-102.
Authors: Winnie Dunn, Brenda Smith Myles, Stephany Orr.
Establishment: Department of Occupational Therapy Education / Department of Special Education, University of Kansas, Kansas City, Kansas, USA.
Link: http://ajot.aotapress.net/content/56/1/97.full.pdf+html

Autism

Functional Connectivity Imaging Analysis: Interhemispheric Integration in Autism.
“Individuals with autism exhibit interhemispheric overconnectivity in both the insula and superior temporal gyrus during face processing when compared to controls.”

Authors: Dan Kelley, Kim Dalton, Moo Chung, Richard Davidson.
Establishment: Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior; University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Link: http://www.stat.wisc.edu/~mchung/teaching/MIA/projects/KelleyFC.pdf

Autism

The New Neurobiology of Autism, Cortex, Connectivity, and Neuronal Organization.
“In particular, it is a disorder of connectivity, which appears, from current evidence, to primarily involve intrahemispheric connectivity.”

Source: Arch Neurol. 2007 Jul;64(7):945-50.
Authors: Minshew NJ, Williams DL.
Establishment: Webster Hall, Suite 300, 3811 O'Hara St, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.
Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17620483

Autism

Interhemispheric asymmetry in EEG photic driving coherence in childhood autism.
“Spectral and coherence characteristics of the EEG photic driving show different aspects of latent abnormal interhemispheric asymmetry in autistics: the right hemisphere "hyporeactivity" and potential "hyperconectivity" of likely compensatory nature in the left hemisphere.”

Source: Clin Neurophysiol. 2010 Feb;121(2):145-52. doi: 10.1016/j.clinph.2009.10.010. Epub 2009 Dec 1.
Authors: Lazarev VV, Pontes A, Mitrofanov AA, deAzevedo LC.
Establishment: Laboratory of Neurobiology and Clinical Neurophysiology, Fernandes Figueira Institute, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Ministry of Health, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19951847

Autism

A Model of Functional Brain Connectivity and Background Noise as a Biomarker for Cognitive Phenotypes: Application to Autism.
“Our analysis reveals significant alterations in both functional brain connectivity and background noise in ASD patients. The dominant connectivity change in ASD relative to control shows enhanced functional excitation from occipital to frontal areas along a parasagittal axis.”

Source: PLOS, published April 17, 2013.
Authors: Domínguez LG, Pérez Velázquez JL, Galán RF.
Establishments: University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada and Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
Link: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0061493

Autism

Developmental Trajectories of Resting EEG Power: An Endophenotype of Autism Spectrum Disorder.
“Current research suggests that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by asynchronous neural oscillations.”

Authors: Tierney A.L., Gabard-Durnam L., Vogel-Farley V., Tager-Flusberg H., Nelson C.A.
Establishments: Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Children’s Hospital Boston, Boston, Massachusetts; University of California Los Angeles, California; Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Link: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0039127

Autism

Physical aggression in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders.
“Aggression is a clinically significant problem for many children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The prevalence of aggression was 53%, with highest prevalence among young children. In multivariate models, self-injury, sleep problems, and sensory problems were most strongly associated with aggression.”

Source: Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, Volume 7, Issue 3, March 2013, Pages 455–465.
Authors: Mazureka, M.O., Kannea, S.M., Wodkab, E.L.
Establishments: University of Missouri-Columbia, Department of Health Psychology and Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Columbia, USA and Center for Autism and Related Disorders, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA.
Link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1750946712001456

Bipolar Disorder

Corpus callosum abnormalities in pediatric bipolar disorder.
“The corpus callosum (CC) is a midline white matter brain region that is important in interhemispheric communication and coordination. CC abnormalities are associated with a variety of psychiatric conditions, including increased vulnerability for psychotic illness, stressful early-life experiences, marijuana use, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, borderline personality disorder, dementia, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.”

Source: Expert Rev Neurother. 2009 Jul;9(7):949-55. doi: 10.1586/ern.09.63.
Authors: Baloch HA, Brambilla P, Soares JC.
Establishment: Department of Psychiatry, 10616 Neuroscience Hospital CB#7160, UNC School of Medicine, USA.
Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19589045

Alzheimer's Disease

In vivo structural neuroanatomy of corpus callosum in Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment using different MRI techniques: a review.
“Results showed that changes in the anterior (genu and anterior body) as well as in the posterior (isthmus and splenum) portions of the CC might already be present in the early stages of AD.”

Source: J Alzheimers Dis. 2010;20(1):67-95. doi: 10.3233/JAD-2010-1370.
Authors: Di Paola M, Spalletta G, Caltagirone C.
Establishment: Clinical and Behavioural Neurology, IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy.
Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20164572

Alzheimer's Disease

Interhemispheric disconnection syndrome in Alzheimer’s disease.
“We report new evidence showing that they also manifest deficits in interhemispheric integration of information, probably reflecting a corpus callosum dysfunction. Their performance during the time-limited trials was abnormal, showing that interhemispheric communication was inadequate.We report a new set of cognitive deficits compatible with a dysfunction of another major structure, the corpus callosum (CC), whose principal function is to allow the exchange of information between the hemispheres. Results reported herein indicate that Alzheimer's patients show an interhemispheric disconnection syndrome similar in nature to that demonstrated by split-brain subjects, i.e., patients whose CC was sectioned to alleviate intractable epilepsy.”

Source: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1998 July 21; 95(15): 9042–9046.
Authors: Yamina Lakmache, Maryse Lassonde, Serge Gauthier, Jean-Yves Frigon, and Franco Lepore
Establishment: Université de Montréal, Canada; Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montreal, Canada; McGill Center for Studies on Aging, Verdun, Canada.
Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC21199/

Alzheimer's Disease

Loss of functional hemispheric asymmetry in Alzheimer’s dementia assessed with near-infrared spectroscopy.
“It appears, in fact, that DAT (Dementia of the Alzheimer-Type) patients are characterized by a loss of this physiological hemispheric lateralization and, instead, show a global activation involving right hemispheric regions in addition to the left hemispheric response observed in controls.”

Source: Cognitive Brain Research 6, 1997, 67–72.
Authors: Fallgatter A.J., Roesler M., Sitzmann L., Heidrich A., Mueller T.J., Strik W.K.
Establishment: Laboratory of Psychiatric Neurophysiology, Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital of Wuerzburg, Germany.
Link: click for link