Predicting the onset of dyslexia in children could soon be faster, according to a new research by the University of California, San Francisco.

The researchers explain that the developmental course of  white matter volume in children might be helpful in determining their ability to read.

"We show that white matter development during a critical period in a child's life, when they start school and learn to read for the very first time, predicts how well the child ends up reading," Fumiko Hoeft, a senior author and an associate professor at the UC San Francisco, said in a press statement.

According to WebMD, around 5 to 10 percent of school students in the United States suffer from learning disabilities with dyslexia being the most common. It causes problems such as reading and comprehension of written language. Because of this, children with dyslexia can have trouble mastering basic skills and succeeding in school.

Most often, in order to determine the problem, doctors use behavioral measures of reading readiness. Other measures such as cognitive ability, early linguistic skills, measures of the environment such as socio-economic status and whether there is a family member with reading problems or dyslexia are all common early factors used to examine the risk of developing reading difficulties.

"What was intriguing in this study was that brain development in regions important to reading predicted above and beyond all of these measures," Hoeft added.

The observations of the research were made after the team analyzed the brain scans of 38 kindergarteners as they were learning to read formally at school. The team tracked their white matter development until third grade.

The findings revealed that the left hemisphere white matter in the temporo-parietal region just behind and above the left ear - thought to be important for language, reading and speech - was highly predictive of reading acquisition.

The research was published online in the journal Psychological Science.