TIME-ESTIMATION DEFICITS IN DEVELOPMENTAL DYSLEXIA - EVIDENCE OF CEREBELLAR INVOLVEMENT

In addition to their language-related difficulties, dyslexic children suffer problems in motor skill, balance, automatization and speeded pe rformance. Given the recent evidence for cerebellar involvement in the acquisition of language fluency, these problems suggest cerebellar de ficit. To test the hypothesis of cerebellar dysfunction in dyslexia, a time estimation task considered to be a sensitive index of cerebellar function was administered to matched groups of dyslexic and control c hildren. The dyslexic children showed the predicted deficit on time es timation (among the most severe obtained in our research programme) bu t not on a control, loudness estimation, task. Cerebellar dysfunction, therefore, provides a parsimonious account of otherwise disparate dat a on deficits in dyslexia.