Reading text increases binocular disparity in dyslexic children

Children with developmental dyslexia show reading impairment compared to their peers, despite being matched on IQ, socio-economic background, and educational opportunities. The neurological and cognitive basis of dyslexia remains a highly debated topic. Proponents of the magnocellular theory, which...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2011-11, Vol.6 (11), p.e27105-e27105
Main Authors: Kirkby, Julie A, Blythe, Hazel I, Drieghe, Denis, Liversedge, Simon P
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abnormalities
Adults
Binocular vision
Biology
Casts
Child
Child development
Children
Children & youth
Cognitive ability
Comparative analysis
Dyslexia
Dyslexia - physiopathology
Dyslexic children
Eye movements
Fixation
Humans
Language
Learning disabled persons
Linguistics
Mediation
Medicine
Neurodevelopmental disorders
Phonetics
Physiology
Psychological aspects
Psychology
Reading
Reading disabilities
Reading processes
Researchers
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Studies
Theory
Vision, Binocular
Visual impairment
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Summary:Children with developmental dyslexia show reading impairment compared to their peers, despite being matched on IQ, socio-economic background, and educational opportunities. The neurological and cognitive basis of dyslexia remains a highly debated topic. Proponents of the magnocellular theory, which postulates abnormalities in the M-stream of the visual pathway cause developmental dyslexia, claim that children with dyslexia have deficient binocular coordination, and this is the underlying cause of developmental dyslexia. We measured binocular coordination during reading and a non-linguistic scanning task in three participant groups: adults, typically developing children, and children with dyslexia. A significant increase in fixation disparity was observed for dyslexic children solely when reading. Our study casts serious doubts on the claims of the magnocellular theory. The exclusivity of increased fixation disparity in dyslexics during reading might be a result of the allocation of inadequate attentional and/or cognitive resources to the reading process, or suboptimal linguistic processing per se.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0027105