Visual Attention and Developmental Dyslexia

Visual Attention and Developmental Dyslexia

People involved

Johanna Egetemeir
Prisca Stenneken

 

In cooperation with:

Kathrin Finke
Werner X. Schneider
Gerd Schulte-Körne
Hermann J. Müller

 

Project Summary:

Starting point of the present project was to explore whether the Theory of Visual Attention (TVA) can be applied to the study of a behaviorally complex developmental deficit like the impaired acquisition of written language (developmental dyslexia). Despite of the clinical heterogeneity, there is accumulating evidence for a specific impairment in tasks requiring visual attention. This empirical evidence, however, stems from a variety of tasks tapping different aspects of attention, leaving the question whether single components of visual attention be identified that are specifically impaired in dyslexia. Investigations of dyslexic participants are based on the estimated parametric values of perceptual processing speed, visual working memory storage capacity and the top-down control and the spatial distribution of attentional weights. Possible reductions in the parametric values of the dyslexic group compared to the control group are taken as markers for the underlying deficit. The present study is expected to support the relevance of visual attention in disorders of written language acquisition and to demonstrate that the TVA provides a suitable tool for specifying the underlying deficit.