A comparison of dyslexic and normal readers using orthoptic assessment procedures

✍ Scribed by Nata Goulandris; Ann McIntyre; Margaret Snowling; Jane-Michelle Bethel; John P. Lee

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 122 KB
• Volume: 4
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1076-9242
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0909(199803)4:1<30::aid-dys98>3.0.co;2-5

✦ Synopsis

This study considers the view that children with reading disability have concomitant visual impairments that exacerbate their reading difficulties. An orthoptic examination comprising a battery of visual tests measuring visual acuity, ocular movements, stereoacuity, accommodation, motor fusion and convergence as well as the Dunlop Reference Eye and the Cover Test were administered to 20 dyslexic children and to chronological and reading age-matched controls. The Dunlop Test proved extremely difficult for all the children regardless of reading status and an equal number of children with an unfixed reference eye was found in all three groups. Moreover, the conventional orthoptic battery did not differentiate the reading disabled from the normally developing readers. When all the participants were subdivided according to whether they had a fixed or an unfixed reference eye there were no significant differences on any of the orthoptic subtests. Further comparison of five dyslexics who passed and five who failed the Dunlop Test revealed no differences in their performance on a number of experimental reading and spelling tests. 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.