Abstract
Studies dealing with developmental aspects of binocular eye movement behavior during reading are scarce. In this study we have explored binocular strategies during reading and visual search tasks in a large population of dyslexic and typical readers. Binocular eye movements were recorded using a video-oculography system in 43 dyslexic children (aged 8–13) and in a group of 42 age-matched typical readers. The main findings are: (i) ocular motor characteristics of dyslexic children are impaired in comparison to those reported in typical children in reading task; (ii) a developmental effect exists in reading in control children, in dyslexic children the effect of development was observed only on fixation durations; and (iii) ocular motor behavior in the visual search tasks is similar for dyslexic children and for typical readers, except for the disconjugacy during and after the saccade: dyslexic children are impaired in comparison to typical children. Data reported here confirms and expands previous studies on children’s reading. Both reading skills and binocular saccades coordination improve with age in typical readers. The atypical eye movement’s patterns observed in dyslexic children suggest a deficiency in the visual attentional processing as well as an impairment of the ocular motor saccade and vergence systems interaction.
Highlights
Reading is a higher cognitive process depending on multiple processes: sensory perception, eye movements, linguistic and semantic capacities (Rayner et al, 2011)
The main findings are: (i) ocular motor characteristics of dyslexic children are impaired in comparison to those reported in typical children in reading task; (ii) a developmental effect exists in reading in control children, in dyslexic children the effect of development was observed only on fixation durations; and (iii) ocular motor behavior in the visual search tasks is similar for dyslexic children and for typical readers, except for the disconjugacy during and after the saccade: dyslexic children are impaired in comparison to typical children
We found a significant effect of the task (F(1,83) = 29.23, p < 0.0001), meaning that the number of fixations was larger in the visual search task with respect to the reading task
Summary
Reading is a higher cognitive process depending on multiple processes: sensory perception, eye movements, linguistic and semantic capacities (Rayner et al, 2011). Despite intensive research on eye movements in dyslexic subjects, the origin of dyslexia is still debated, and other theories have been proposed which do not agree with an ocular motor impairment in dyslexic population (Lyon et al, 2003). A high number of regressive saccades and unstable fixation were observed by Pavlidis (1981) in Greek dyslexic children; in English dyslexic children, Rayner (1985) reported frequent saccades of smaller amplitude and longer duration fixations; in Italian dyslexic children, De Luca et al (1999) observed frequent fixations with longer durations. Slower reading speed and high number of saccades and regressions was reported in German dyslexic children (Trauzettel-Klosinski et al, 2010). Abnormal eye movements in picture searching was reported in Chinese dyslexic children by Li et al (2009), showing more fixations and frequent saccades of small amplitude
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