Visual-motor integration and reading Chinese in children with/without dyslexia

Abstract

Visual-motor integration is an ability to coordinate the visual information and limb movement, which has direct relevance to Chinese handwriting ability. Interestingly handwriting practice can also improve Chinese reading. However, the relationship between visual-motor integration and reading ability in Chinese is unclear. The present study investigated the role of visual-motor integration skills in reading Chinese among children with and without developmental dyslexia. In the study Chinese children with developmental dyslexia (DD-Group), chronological-age-matched children (CA-Group), and reading-level-matched children (RL-Group) were asked to participate in reading and reading related tasks as well as word-copying and picture-copying (visual-motor integration) tasks. The results revealed that the DD-Group performed significantly worse than the CA-Group on the word copying task, and that the DD-Group performed similarly to the RL-Group on the reading and reading related tasks and the word-copying task. However, the DD-Group performed significantly worse than the CA- and RL-Groups on the visual-motor integration task. Further, when age and intelligence were controlled visual-motor integration and word-copying skills could explain 14 and 16% of the variance in reading skills respectively. When reading-related cognitive skills were controlled, visual-motor integration skills could still explain 8% of variance in reading skills, but word-copying skills did not. The results of the current study indicated for the first time that visual-motor integration skills play an essential role in reading Chinese independent of word copying ability.