Abstract
Reading is a highly complex process in which integrative neurocognitive functions are required. Visual-spatial abilities play a pivotal role because of the multi-faceted visual sensory processing involved in reading. Several studies show that children with developmental dyslexia (DD) fail to develop effective visual strategies and that some reading difficulties are linked to visual-spatial deficits. However, the relationship between visual-spatial skills and reading abilities is still a controversial issue. Crucially, the role that age plays has not been investigated in depth in this population, and it is still not clear if visual-spatial abilities differ across educational stages in DD. The aim of the present study was to investigate visual-spatial abilities in children with DD and in age-matched normal readers (NR) according to different educational stages: in children attending primary school and in children and adolescents attending secondary school. Moreover, in order to verify whether visual-spatial measures could predict reading performance, a regression analysis has been performed in younger and older children. The results showed that younger children with DD performed significantly worse than NR in a mental rotation task, a more-local visual-spatial task, a more-global visual-perceptual task and a visual-motor integration task. However, older children with DD showed deficits in the more-global visual-perceptual task, in a mental rotation task and in a visual attention task. In younger children, the regression analysis documented that reading abilities are predicted by the visual-motor integration task, while in older children only the more-global visual-perceptual task predicted reading performances. Present findings showed that visual-spatial deficits in children with DD were age-dependent and that visual-spatial abilities engaged in reading varied across different educational stages. In order to better understand their potential role in affecting reading, a comprehensive description and a multi-componential evaluation of visual-spatial abilities is needed with children with DD.
Highlights
Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a specific learning disorder characterized by persistent difficulties in learning how to read accurately, fluently, and in reading comprehension caused by multiple genetic and environmental risk factors, as well as their interplay (Peterson and Pennington, 2015)
Post hoc analysis revealed that the younger subgroup of children with DD performed significantly worse than younger normal readers (NR) in Spatial Rotation Test (SRT) (p = 0.0032), in both visual perception tasks (VPT2 p = 0.040 and VPT4 p = 0.017) and in Visual Motor Integration Test (VMI) (p = 0.000004)
Older subgroup of children with DD performed significantly worse than older NR in MAP (p = 0.002), SRT (p = 0.029), and VPT4 (p = 0.0022)
Summary
Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a specific learning disorder characterized by persistent difficulties in learning how to read accurately, fluently, and in reading comprehension caused by multiple genetic and environmental risk factors, as well as their interplay (Peterson and Pennington, 2015). Several studies demonstrated that reading is a complex cognitive process, in which phonological skills, and auditory sensory processes, memory abilities, attention processes, automatization and visual-spatial skills are involved (Nicolson and Fawcett, 1990; Pennington, 2006; Menghini et al, 2010b). A study by Winner et al (2001) showed that adults and high school or undergraduate students with DD did not perform as successfully as control group in mental rotation, visual memory, spatial word problems and visual logical matrices regardless of attentional problems. In a study investigating the role of sensorimotor impairments in DD, no difference between motion coherence and visual stress has been found between aged-school children with DD and controls matched on gender, age and non-verbal IQ (White et al, 2006). A study carried out on high school students (von Károlyi et al, 2003) reported better performances in participants with DD with respect to normal readers (NR) in a specific visual-spatial task, such as rapid and accurate holistic inspection
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