Question:

I don’t believe this at all… if this were true every kid in my class would be dyslexic. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -I have heard that, if you have an ultra-sound scan early in your pregnancy, this can cause, or raise the chances dyslexia.

Response:

I have heard that, if you have an ultra-sound scan early in your pregnancy, this can cause, or raise the chances dyslexia. I think this is total nonsense.

I think it is utter nonsense. There is legitmate evidence, however, that children who were exposed to "mathematical" music such as Mozart in utero or during infancy later did better in math. This I can believe, since a little sensory stimulation at an early age never hurt anyone.  You might also be interested to check out some of the findings of Dr. Tomatis and his former pupil Dr. Berard regarding the use of sound to "tune in" the brains of dyslexic and autistic people. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but it is still being used, and an acquaintance reports that his autistic nephew benefited greatly.

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I have heard that, if you have an ultra-sound scan early in your pregnancy, this can cause, or raise the chances dyslexia.  I am dyslexic myself and a concerned mother to be, am I being paranoid or is there any proof either way for the argument? Is there a ’site which contains such information? Ruth

Response:

I have heard that, if you have an ultra-sound scan early in your pregnancy, this can cause, or raise the chances dyslexia.

I think this is total nonsense. Since I am not content to merely have an opinion based on common sense, I did some research on the internet.  I found that a study had actually been undertaken on this – and no correlation whatsoever was found. In fact, although it was statistically insignificant, a slightly HIGHER percentage of dyslexic children were found in the group that had NOT had ultrasound screening.  Here is the abstract of the study, published in Lancet in 1992, taken from http://home.netvigator.com/~usound/safesal1.htm Abstract      Most fetuses in developed countries are exposed in utero to diagnostic ultrasound examination. Many pregnant      women express concern about whether the procedure harms the fetus. Since most routine ultrasound examinations      are done at weeks 16-22, when the fetal brain is developing rapidly, effects on neuronal migration are possible. We      have sought an association between routine ultrasonography in utero and reading and writing skills among children in      primary school. At the age of 8 or 9 years, children of women who had taken part in two randomised, controlled      trials of routine ultrasonography during pregnancy were followed-up. The women had attended the clinics of 60      general practitioners in central Norway during 1979-81. The analysis of outcome was by intention to treat: 92% of      the "screened" group had been exposed to ultrasound screening at weeks 16-22, and 95% of controls had not been      so exposed, but there was some overlap. 2428 singletons were eligible for follow-up, and the school performance      of 2011 children (83%) was assessed by their teachers on a scale of 1-7; the teachers were unaware of ultrasound      exposure status. A subgroup of 603 children underwent specific tests for dyslexia. There were no statistically      significant differences between children screened with ultrasound and controls in the teacher-reported school      performance (scores for reading, spelling, arithmetic, or overall performance). Results from the dyslexia test sample      showed no differences between screened children and controls in reading, spelling, and intelligence scores, or in      discrepancy scores between intelligence and reading or spelling. The test results classified 21 of the 309 screened      children (7% [95% confidence interval 3-10%]) and 26 of the 294 controls (9% [4-12%]) as dyslexic. The risk of      having poor skills in reading and writing was no greater for children whose mothers had been offered routine      ultrasonography than for those whose mothers had not been offered the procedure. I also managed to figure out where this false rumor comes from, in my internet search — suffice it to say that the people spreading this false information do NOT cite any authority, and they have a different agenda, and appear to be engaging in fear-mongering to promote their agenda. -Abigail

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