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The Massive Impact of Literacy
on the Brain and its Consequences for Education

Stanislas Dehaene

Introduction
It was once claimed that the bridge from brain research to education was ‘a bridge too far’ (Bruer, 1997). In the past decade, however, important progress has been made in bridging this gap, taking advantage of the im- proved ability to image the human brain in adults and children, in experi- mental paradigms relevant to learning and education. I would like to argue that, in fact, considerable cognitive neuroscience knowledge is already highly relevant to education.