Welcome to the Power4Kids fMRI language and reading study, conducted by the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging (CCBI) at Carnegie Mellon.

As of May 2005, we finished collecting data on this project. We had over 120 children involved in this study. We appreciate all the children and parents who were part of this study. Thank you for your participation!

In this project, we took pictures of the brains of children with and without reading disabilities while they did reading activities. We used a method called fMRI to watch the brain activity and see which parts of the brain were hard at work. We used an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanner. The "f" in fMRI stands for "functional" because we are especially interested in the working of the brain, or its functioning. The reading activities were shown on a computer screen that can easily be read from inside the scanner.

Our current status is analyzing the brain pictures from all the children. We are investigating the changes within the brains of children before and after receiving special reading instruction as well as comparing them to the brains of children without reading difficulties.

On this web page you will find information about the project, including a Frequently Asked Questions section that may address questions or concerns you might have that were not answered in the packets you received.

Click on the menus on the left to find out more about the people behind the project, the people you and your child will be working with, the facilities where your child will participate in our study, and a walk-through of your child's fMRI session.