Electrophysiological indices of reading intervention response: A systematic review

Research on reading and reading intervention has benefited from studies that have employed cognitive neuroscience tools. These efforts have established the brain basis of reading disability (RD) and have shown plasticity in the underlying neural systems for reading as children gain proficiency through instruction or intervention. Most of this work has utilized magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to reveal differences in functional activation (regional blood flow) during reading between typically developing (TD) and RD readers and/or to look at pre-post intervention change in this activation. While this work has revealed which regions of the brain are involved in reading and how regional activation changes in response to intervention, it is limited in its ability to reveal differences or changes in the temporal dynamics of neural function. Electroencephalography (EEG) and event-related potentials (ERPs), which can measure these temporal dynamics, have also been used to explore individual differences in reading as well as reading intervention-associated changes, albeit to a more limited extent. These studies have also revealed differences in the neurobiology of RD and TD readers and changes in the neural signal following intervention. In this chapter, we provide a systematic review of studies that have utilized EEG or ERPs to investigate reading intervention associated changes in neural function. While studies differ in their interventions and ERP components of interest, they reveal a general pattern of reading improvement and ERP component change from pre to post-intervention suggesting plasticity in the neural systems that support reading.