Neurobiological evidence for the role of cognitive control for reading and math in English Learners

• In Event: Poster Session 14
  In Poster Session: PS 14 Topic - Education, Schooling

Abstract

English Learners (ELs) are students from non-English speaking backgrounds and are a growing population in U.S. schools. This group is often characterized by wide gaps in academic achievement compared to their grade level peers. ELs struggle with both reading and math. Comorbid learning difficulties are also especially high in this group. One important avenue to characterizing learning in ELs is to understand the neurobiological systems that underlie the multiple learning processes and difficulties in this group. If a common brain system is recruited for both reading and math in ELs, this might be a mechanism that explains comorbid difficulties and provides a key to understanding remediation. A candidate set of brain systems are cognitive control brain networks, sets of brain regions that support higher order goal-directed processes. In monolingual children with and without academic difficulties, cognitive control networks are engaged during reading and math processes, and the degree of network engagement predicts individual differences in academic skills. ELs are learning in a particularly control-demanding environment and have to constantly utilize their less proficient language. This environment could mean that recruitment of cognitive control networks for learning may be particularly salient for this group. Further, the way cognitive control systems are engaged in ELs may be key predictors of academic outcomes. Here, we use functional MRI collected during reading, math, and non-lexical cognitive flexibility tasks (Figure 1a). Data were collected from a group of Hispanic middle school ELs (N = 70, mean age = 12.33, 31 F) with varied academic skill and language proficiency. Reading and math tasks were block-designed with blocks of addition, subtraction, rhyming, and orthography judgments. Our non-lexical cognitive flexibility task was an event-related cued switching paradigm. We use these data to answer two questions: 1) Is there evidence of common engagement of cognitive control systems in reading, math and, cognitive flexibility tasks, and 2) Does brain activity in cognitive control regions during these tasks relate to out-of-scanner measures of academic skill? We see strong overlapping engagement across the three tasks in regions belonging to cognitive control networks (Figure 1b). Within literature-based reading, math, and cognitive control regions of interest, we found several relationships between reading-related region engagement and out of scanner measures of reading skills. Although we predicted activity in cognitive control regions during academic tasks would relate to academic skills, we found brain activity in control regions during the non-academic switching task showed stronger and more widespread relations to standardized reading and language measures. These findings suggest that engagement of control systems is crucial for both reading and math processes in ELs. Additionally, control engagement in the brain is more broadly related to academic learning outcomes for this group, suggesting that cognitive control networks may have a more complex role in academic learning for this understudied, growing U.S. population.

Authors

• Tehila Nugiel, University of Texas at Austin
  Presenting Author

• Mackenzie E Mitchell, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  Non-Presenting Author

• Damion Demeter, University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author

• AnnaCarolina Garza, The University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jenifer Juranek, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jessica A Church, University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author