Visual dyslexia

Many people doubt that a specific disorder of reading (dyslexia) even exists, let alone that it may have a perceptual basis. However, a high proportion of children whose reading is backward, despite their having normal intelligence in other respects, demonstrate disordered eye movements, whether or not they are attempting to read. Since reading requires very precise oculomotor control in order to locate and sequence letters or words correctly, this may explain their difficulties. We have used a new test of oculomotor/visual integration to demonstrate that many dyslexics fail to develop stable ocular dominance, unlike normal readers. These children make predominantly visual errors when attempting to read. Simply occluding one eye in order to promote retinal and oculomotor dominance of the other, may improve their reading ability dramatically.