Eye movements, scanpaths, and dyslexia

The oculomotor performance of 25 dyslexic and 19 normal children was evaluated to determine whether or not dyslexia involves deficits in oculomotor function or visual perception. When the children were required to follow a meaningless target or to solve pictorial tasks, the two age-matched groups could not be differentiated. When they were required to read selections commensurate with their measured reading level, the dyslexic children were markedly different on a number of parameters. It appears that the dyslexic's difficulty lies beyond visual perception, perhaps in the language area itself. The dyslexic's characteristic deficit seems to involve the integration of visual input into the language-acquisition function.