Dyslexia May Make It Tough to Tune Out School Noise “Developmental dyslexia affects reading and spelling skills in 5 to 10 percent of school-age children. In their study, researchers from Northwestern University in Chicago found that the brains of non-dyslexic children could ignore distractions and automatically focus on relevant, predictable and repeating auditory information. Dyslexic children didn't have this ability.”

New Brain Findings On Dyslexic Children: Good Readers Learn From Repeating Auditory Signals, Poor Readers Do Not “The vast majority of school-aged children can focus on the voice of a teacher amid the cacophony of the typical classroom thanks to a brain that automatically focuses on relevant, predictable and repeating auditory information, according to new research from Northwestern University. But for children with developmental dyslexia, the teacher's voice may get lost in the background noise of banging lockers, whispering children, playground screams and scraping chairs, the researchers say. Their study appears in the Nov. 12 issue of Neuron. Recent scientific studies suggest that children with developmental dyslexia -- a neurological disorder affecting reading and spelling skills in 5 to 10 percent of school aged children -- have difficulties separating relevant auditory information from competing noise.”