Gori-Franceschini-2023

Authors: Simone Gori, Sandro Franceschini, Sara Bertoni, Giovanna Puccio, Cristiano Termine, Andrea Facoetti.

Article: Distributed and focused visuo‑spatial attention deficits in children with dyslexia..

Publication: Journal of Vision (Arvo Journals). Vol.23, 4845 2023 | DOI: 10.1167/jov.23.9.4845

Abstract

Although developmental dyslexia have been mainly associated with auditory-phonological deficits, recent longitudinal and training studies have shown a possible causal role of visuo-attentional skills in reading acquisition. Indeed, visuo-attentional mechanisms could be involved in the orthographic processing of the letter string and the graphemic parsing that precede the grapheme-to-phoneme mapping. Here, we used a simple paper-and-pencil task composed of three labyrinths to measure visuo-spatial attention in a large sample of primary school children (n= 398). In comparison to visual search tasks requiring visual working memory, our labyrinth task mainly measures distributed and focused visuo-spatial attention, also controlling for sensorimotor learning. Compared to typical readers (n= 340), children with reading difficulties (n= 58) showed clear visuo-spatial attention impairments not linked to motor coordination and procedural learning skills. Since visual attention is dysfunctional in about 40% of the children with reading difficulties, an efficient reading remediation program should integrate both auditory-phonological and visuo-attentional interventions.

Tagged as: children, visual attention, and visually based interventions

Citation:

Simone Gori, Sandro Franceschini, Sara Bertoni, Giovanna Puccio, Cristiano Termine, Andrea Facoetti; Distributed and focused visuo‑spatial attention deficits in children with dyslexia. Journal of Vision 2023;23(9):4845. https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.23.9.4845.