Tracking Adult Literacy Acquisition With Functional <scp>MRI</scp>: A Single‐Case Study

Abstract

ABSTRACT We evaluated neuro‐functional changes associated with late acquisition of reading in an illiterate adult who underwent 20 longitudinal functional magnetic resonance imaging ( fMRI ) scans during 2 years, while the participant progressed from complete illiteracy to a modest level of alphabetical decoding. Initially, the participant did not activate neural circuits for reading when he was exposed to words; gradually, however, he began to present activation in left occipitotemporal cortex, at the visual word form area. This increase was accompanied by a decrease in face responses. Reading‐related responses also emerged in language‐related areas of the inferior frontal gyrus and temporal lobe. Additional activations in superior parietal lobe, superior frontal gyrus and posterior medial frontal cortex suggested that reading remained dependent on effortful executive attention and working memory processes. Nevertheless, the results indicate that adult plasticity can be sufficient to induce rapid changes in brain responses to written words and faces in an unschooled and illiterate adult.