Limited Capacityfull Adding this to your schedule will put you on the waitlist.
A review of visual conditions that may co-occurwith dyslexiaBruce EvansInstitute of Optometry, City University London,London South Bank Universityadmin@ioo.org.ukDyslexia was originally attributed to wordblindness but it is now widely recognised thatvisual factors are not major causes of dyslexia.However, several visual anomalies have beenclaimed to co-occur with dyslexia. This remainsa topic of controversy between and even withinthe eye care professions. This presentation willreview the evidence on this topic, without theprejudice of assuming causality for correlates.PubMed and other databases were searchedfor case-control and cross-sectional studies thataimed to detect visual correlates of dyslexia.Relevant visual conditions and tests wereclassified. For the several correlates that were identified, the evidence was considered todetermine whether they are likely to be noncausalcorrelates, contributory factors, or causesof dyslexia.Most dyslexic children have normal vision butsome visual conditions are more prevalentin dyslexia than in good readers. Althoughcontroversial, the most common of these maybe Visual Stress, occurring to a significant degreein about one in five children with dyslexia. Thiscan cause eyestrain, headaches, and visualperceptual distortions and is alleviated withcoloured filters. Less common visual correlatesof dyslexia include binocular instability andaccommodative insufficiency. These conditionsare unlikely to be major causative factors, butmay contribute to some children’s reluctance toread.
