Life Science log

The brain?s right hemisphere is not involved in the initial processes of reading in Arabic, due to the graphic complexity of Arabic script. Therefore reading acquisition in Arabic is much harder in comparison to English. This has been shown in a series of studies that were carried out at the Department of Psychology and the Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities at the University of Haifa. These studies have been published in the prestigious journal Neuropsychology.Over the past ten years, much data has indicated that reading acquisition in Arabic is slower and harder than in other languages. The series of studies, carried out by Prof. Zohar Eviatar and Dr. Raphiq Ibrahim, examined the assumption that this difficulty is due to the visual complexity of the written Arabic system. The researchers explain that Arabic has a number of very similar graphic symbols representing different letters and sounds, distinguished only by very slight differences such as lines or dots, as w