The 2013 NORMAN GESCHWIND MEMORIAL LECTURE


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September 2013

 

Laurie E. Cutting, Ph.D., Patricia and Rodes Hart Associate Professor of Special Education, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee

Plenary Session: Friday, November  8, 2013, 8:30 a.m.

“From Words to Text: Behavioral and Neurobiological Correlates of Reading”

The International Dyslexia Association would like to share some exciting news. This year we are honored to welcome the renowned Laurie E. Cutting Ph.D., as our Norman Geschwind Memorial Lecture recipient. She will highlight the IDA 2013 Conference in New Orleans, with her extensive experience and background in the research of dyslexia and other related difficulties. The lecture is entitled; From Words to Text: Behavioral and Neurobiological Correlates of Reading”

Dr. Cutting is a Patricia and Rodes Hart Associate Professor of Special Education, Psychology, Radiology and Pediatrics. She also serves as Director of Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Reading Clinic. In addition, she is a Research Affiliate of Haskins Laboratories and a member of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute and the Vanderbilt Center for Cognitive and Integrative Neuroscience. She is the principal investigator of several NIH-funded research projects on reading and reading comprehension. She is a co-investigator on other NIH-funded and Department of Education-funded projects on reading, reading disabilities, and ADHD.

Dr. Cutting’s research program is focused on understanding brain-behavior relations as related to learning and communication in children and adolescents. Her research focuses particularly on reading disabilities, language, and executive function. She also studies the cognitive and neurobiological profile of Neurofibromatosis Type 1, a genetic disorder that is commonly characterized by learning disabilities in childhood. Dr. Cutting uses methodologies such as neuropsychological testing in combination with various neuroimaging techniques and experimental measures. Some of her studies also include intervention components.

Dr. Cutting’s session will describe how individuals with dyslexia and related disorders differ relative to typically developing readers. She also will explain how their neurobiological structure and function has been found to be useful for predicting responsiveness to intervention. Another aspect of reading that has been less of a focus is determining how the higher level linguistic and cognitive processes important for reading comprehension differ across readers. Although less is known about these processes, Dr. Cutting will discuss how recent findings have shed some light on the neurobiological mechanisms of comprehension.

Do not miss this presentation as you will learn about recent findings regarding the various levels of reading (word-level, comprehension), better understand the inter-relationships between the two, and recognize how neurobiological approaches help to inform and refine both our understanding and treatment of reading disability.


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