The brains of children with dyslexia and those of children with low IQ have few differences, according to research from Stanford psychologists.

The research, carried out by psychiatric students, was conducted by asking children with low-reading skills, some with dyslexia and others with low IQs, a series of rhyme-recognition questions. During this time, a functional MRI scanner monitored the subjects.

They found that 80 percent of the time, children diagnosed with dyslexia and those with lower IQs had identical MRI scans. In the Journal of Psychological Science the researchers said that “the longstanding and widely applied diagnosis of dyslexia by IQ discrepancy is not supported.”

Oxford professor John Stein, who founded the Dyslexia Research Trust, has hotly contested the research. In an interview with British newspaper The Telegraph, Stein said, “Dyslexia is real. This study ignores all the genetic evidence, and a lot of other neurological evidence that dyslexia is a distinct syndrome.”