Links between organized visual search and reading ability in French primary school children

Visual search skills develop substantially during the primary school years, and in parallel with children's reading achievement. Reading requires an efficient visual search and exposure to reading from the left to the right could also influence the way we explore space. No study, however, made links between visual search strategies and reading ability. In this study, 70 primary school children performed a cancellation task (Bells test) and reading tests. Our results showed that reading was closely linked to visual search accuracy but also to visual search organization, even after controlling for age for some measures. Along with the development of reading abilities, children made fewer revisitation, moved more to the nearest unmarked targets than to the farthest ones and explored more in lines. It appears, therefore, essential to take more into account the visual search organization of children with reading impairments such as dyslexia.