[Saccadic eye movements in children with reading disorders]

Several reports raised the possibility that dysfunction of saccadic eye movements produces reading disorder (RD), although opposite conclusions have also been reported. In this study, saccadic eye movements were investigated in 13 forth graders with RD and 20 age-matched controls during reading and non-reading tasks. Compared to the control group, children with RD showed significantly higher incidences of both forward and backward saccadic eye movements in reading tasks, while they revealed a significantly lower number of saccadic eye movements in response to sequentially moving targets in two types of non-reading tasks. These problems, seen in non-reading tasks, suggest that excessive saccadic eye movements observed in RD children during reading are not produced by mechanisms involved in the language and phonological processes alone, but also those in the saccadic eye movement process. Dysfunction in the saccadic eye movements could be one of the causal factors that produce RD.