Wired from the start: how infant brain connectivity signals later reading risk

Key facts

• Infants with a familial history of dyslexia already show altered functional connectivity in key language and reading regions, despite having similar early cognitive and environmental profiles to peers.​

• Distinct connectivity patterns in the left fusiform gyrus (a future hub for print processing) can reliably distinguish at‑risk infants from those without familial risk.​

• Early disruptions in connections between the fusiform gyrus and language/attention networks are hypothesised to influence how the reading network later specialises, increasing vulnerability to reading difficulties.​

• These findings support viewing dyslexia as a neurodevelopmental difference that begins in infancy, strengthening arguments for early monitoring and support, not wait‑to‑fail approaches.

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Most people assume reading difficulties only become visible once children start school and struggle with books. Yet emerging neuroscience paints a very different picture. Patterns in the brain’s communication networks, detectable as early as infancy, appear to foreshadow which children are more likely to experience reading challenges later on.

One influential cohort study followed nearly one hundred infants, some with a familial history of developmental dyslexia and some without. All babies took part in MRI scans while they slept, and researchers examined functional connectivity in regions that later play key roles in language and reading. Crucially, the two groups of infants were carefully matched on age, early cognitive skills, and environmental factors such as home language input.​

The standout finding was that infants with a family history of dyslexia already showed distinct connectivity patterns in the left fusiform gyrus, a region that will eventually house the visual word form area responsible for recognising written words. Using multivariate pattern analysis, the research team could reliably distinguish at‑risk infants from their peers by looking only at these connectivity signatures. These differences were not about visible behaviour or parenting, but about how early brain networks were wired.​

Even more striking were the specific connections that contributed most strongly to this classification. The left fusiform gyrus in at‑risk infants showed altered connectivity with regions involved in language and attention. These long‑range networks are thought to help the brain link visual symbols with sounds and meanings when children learn to read. If those connections develop atypically from the start, the system that supports efficient reading may have to work harder, or rely on less efficient routes, when schooling begins.

Review work synthesising longitudinal neuroimaging studies echoes this idea. Children who later develop dyslexia often show atypical structure and function in left‑hemisphere reading pathways, as well as different developmental trajectories in white matter tracts, even before formal reading instruction. In other words, dyslexia is better understood as a neurodevelopmental difference with roots in early brain development, rather than a problem caused by laziness, lack of effort, or poor teaching alone.​

For educators and policymakers, these findings are both a warning and an opportunity. They warn against waiting until Year 3 or 4 to respond to reading failure, because some vulnerabilities have been in place since infancy. At the same time, they highlight an opportunity to design systems that assume diverse starting points and offer early, evidence‑based support. That does not mean scanning babies’ brains in schools. Instead, it means using what is known about early neural risk to justify robust early screening of oral language and pre‑literacy skills, high‑quality instruction for all, and timely intervention for children who show signs of struggle. When the wiring is recognised early, the pathway into literacy can be reshaped far more effectively.

References

Chyl, K., Kossowski, B., Dębska, A., Łuniewska, M., Banaszkiewicz, A., Zelechowska, A., & Jednoróg, K. (2021). Brain dynamics of (a)typical reading development: A review of longitudinal neuroimaging studies. NPJ Science of Learning, 6, 21. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-020-00081-5​

Liu, T., Benasich, A. A., Shih, E. W., Marchina, S., & Gaab, N. (2022). Patterns of neural functional connectivity in infants at familial risk of developmental dyslexia. JAMA Network Open, 5(10), e2235712. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.35712​

Turesky, T. K., et al. (2025). Longitudinal trajectories of brain development from infancy to school age and their relationship with literacy development. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(24), e2414598122. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2414598122

Pınar, Y., et al. (2025). Reading and white matter development: A systematic review of longitudinal studies. Neuroscience of Learning, 5(2), 264–287.