AI Spots Dyslexia in Brain Scans With 96 Percent Accuracy? ADA Explains What the Study Shows

SARASOTA, Fla. - EntSun -- An AI model that sorts children by their brain scans with 96 percent accuracy has made headlines since the study appeared in the journal Neural Computing and Applications on October 9, 2026. The American Dyslexia Association (ADA) explains what the number means for parents and teachers.

The study by S. Santhiya and C. S. Kanimozhiselvi of Kongu Engineering College in India is based on 58 MRI scans. The scans come from a free public dataset of the University of Graz in Austria and show children aged 8 to 10: 22 typical readers, 16 children with isolated spelling difficulties, and 20 children with dyslexia. Because 58 scans are very few for an AI, the researchers added computer-generated brain images. The method has not yet been tested on new children.

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With 58 children, the remaining 4 percent equals two or three children. A comparable study from Spain reached 72.73 percent in 2020 with 55 children.

One detail is missing from most reports: which child belonged to which group was decided before any AI saw an image. The Graz team had sorted the children with standardized reading and spelling tests. The AI learned to find the result of those tests in the brain images.

"The test remains the yardstick, not the scanner," said Dr. Elsa Palmer, Director of Information and Member Services at the American Dyslexia Association. "A brain scan is expensive, asks a child to lie still for a long time, and tells you nothing about which training will help. An educational assessment does exactly that. No child needs a brain scan to find out about dyslexia."

A reading and spelling test alone shows that a child struggles, not why. Dyslexia is genetic and shows in different sensory perceptions. The AFS-Test looks at attention, the sensory perceptions, and the errors a child makes, and it leads directly to a training plan. Brain research also has good news: at the University of Washington, 28 hours of reading instruction brought the brain activity of children with dyslexia close to that of typical readers (Aylward and colleagues, Neurology, 2003).

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The full article with all sources, "Can AI Spot Dyslexia in a Brain Scan?", is at dyslexia.me (https://www.dyslexia.me/ai-dyslexia-brain-scan-study/).

The American Dyslexia Association Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity based in Osprey, Florida. It supports children, families, educators, and adults affected by dyslexia and dyscalculia with free information, worksheets, games, and the AFS-Method. More at american-dyslexia-association.org (https://www.american-dyslexia-association.org/).