When a child is having a hard time learning to read, the first thing most parents do is look for a reason. Maybe she’s not ready yet. Maybe he needs to try harder, or read more at home. I understand the impulse, but I want to share something that might change how you think about it. Scientists have had physical evidence that dyslexia is a difference in the brain since the 1980s. Dyslexia is a built-in brain difference, which indicates that person needs a direct and systematic approach to learning to read.
🔬 The early Harvard study
Back in the late 1970s, a Harvard neurologist named Albert Galaburda was convinced dyslexia resulted from differences in brain structure. The trouble was that nobody had been able to look, because the only available method at that time was post-mortem brain dissection. In 1979 he finally got an opportunity to study one brain.
He saw enough in that first brain to keep going, and by 1985 he and his colleagues had studied four, all from people who had been diagnosed with dyslexia while they were alive. All four brains showed the same two things.
The first was symmetry where there shouldn’t have been any. There’s a region involved in processing language sounds called the planum temporale and, in most people, it’s clearly bigger on the left. In these four brains the left and right sides were the same size.
The second was something called ectopias, small clumps of neurons sitting in the wrong layer of the cortex. Neurons travel to their final positions before birth, so if they end up in the wrong spot, the difference is an ectopia.
Both of these are anatomical findings. That just means they’re differences in the physical structure of the brain, things you can see and measure.
💡 A different path from the start
Galaburda and his mentor Norman Geschwind put these pieces together into what’s now called the Geschwind-Galaburda hypothesis: that dyslexia comes from brain anatomy that develops differently before birth. The dyslexic brain isn’t a typical brain that fell behind somewhere along the way. It was built differently from the beginning.
This is the point at which dyslexia stopped being explained as laziness or a problem with the eyes and started being treated as a built-in brain difference.
As science evolved, some nuances have been clarified, but the central idea has been maintained. In 2014, a group of researchers went back to Galaburda’s original question with MRI. They carefully measured the planum temporale in living children and found reduced asymmetry in kids with dyslexia. Thirty years apart, with completely different tools, they landed in the same place.
🧩 What this means for your child
It means the question of whether dyslexia is “real” was answered a long time ago. It’s a built-in brain difference, present before a child even tries to read (I wrote about that here).
It also means waiting doesn’t help. A brain organized this way doesn’t pick up reading through trying harder and encouragement. Reading needs to be taught directly and systematically, one sound and one letter at a time, with a lot of repetition. The good news is, this kind of teaching actually changes the brain. The reading pathways get stronger with the right practice.
✅ If you’re wondering about your own child
If your child is struggling with reading, a neuropsychological evaluation can tell you whether dyslexia is part of what’s going on and which pieces of the reading process need support, so you’re not guessing about what to do next.
