Sex Differences in White Matter Microstructure Following Reading Intervention in Children with Developmental Dyslexia

Even though developmental dyslexia (DD) is the most common learning disability, poor response to treatment is well known as a defining feature of this disorder, having adverse effects on children’s functioning and mental health. While neuroscience research has made significant advances in studying the neurobiological markers underlying DD, study samples remain unrepresentative of the population as they are typically skewed towards males. The current study helps bridge this gap by identifying sex based white matter differences and their associated changes following a structured reading intervention in third and fourth graders. A series of Liner Mixed Effects models were conducted for comparing sex, hemisphere, time, and white matter microstructure in the tracts of interest. The results indicated significant sex and hemisphere differences in reading tracts of interest. Moreover, significant effects of sex and time were found in the corpus callosum, suggesting that sex plays a role in white matter change following intervention.