Lateral versus frontal ERP predictors of reading skill

Neuropsychological factors that could account for good versus poor reading skills include hemispheric asymmetry for language, signal processing efficiency, hemisphericity, and frontally based control of attention. Using event-related potential (ERP) measures of these constructs, we find that only hemisphericity accounts for individual differences in reading skill among our 15-year-old good readers, while the frontally generated Contingent Negative Variation attentional ERP accounts for reading skill differences among the poor readers. While good readers show expected hemispheric ERP asymmetries and poor readers do not, this group difference does not account for the variation in reading skill. These data suggest that below some crucial threshold, reading disability is predicted by frontal attentional skill, whereas above this threshold, good reading is better predicted by hemisphericity.