Since motion detection deficits in pre-reading children predict who will develop reading problems ( Boets et al., 2011), it is likely that a task to improve motion discrimination, and thereby timing, in either the auditory or visual domain will remediate reading problems, a key question addressed by this study. Identification of the cognitive skills that predict subsequent reading ability can help identify children at risk for reading problems, and following appropriate training reduce the severity of their symptoms ( Kevan and Pammer, 2009). Previous studies have shown that reading difficulties in many children may indeed be prevented through early intervention ( Schatschneider et al., 2004). Reading difficulties, including people having dyslexia and attention deficits, are prevalent in the United States (US) where 65% of fourth graders and 62% of 12th graders are not proficient in reading ( National Center for Educational Statistics, 2013). This study demonstrates that visual movement direction-discrimination can be used to not only detect dyslexia early, but also for its successful treatment, so that reading problems do not prevent children from readily learning.ĭyslexia is a multifaceted reading disability that encompasses both pronunciation-based and visual processing-based reading issues ( Stein, 2001) that is characterized by severe reading and spelling problems ( Vellutino et al., 2004). This study supports the hypothesis that faulty timing in synchronizing the activity of magnocellular with parvocellular visual pathways is a fundamental cause of dyslexia, and argues against the assumption that reading deficiencies in dyslexia are caused by phonological deficits. Visual pathway training in dyslexics to improve direction-discrimination of moving test patterns relative to a stationary background (figure/ground discrimination) significantly improved attention, reading fluency, both speed and comprehension, phonological processing, and both auditory and visual working memory relative to controls, whereas auditory training to improve phonological processing did not improve these academic skills significantly more than found for controls. To investigate this issue three interventions were compared in 58 dyslexics in second grade (7 years on average), two targeting the temporal dynamics (timing) of either the auditory or visual pathways with a third reading intervention (control group) targeting linguistic word building. There is an ongoing debate about whether the cause of dyslexia is based on linguistic, auditory, or visual timing deficits.
2Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.1Perception Dynamics Institute, Del Mar, CA, USA.
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