VERBAL AND VISUAL PROBLEMS IN READING-DISABILITY

Most individuals interested in reading disability favor the view that disordered language processing is the main cause of children's reading problems and that visual problems are seldom, if ever, responsible. N evertheless, in a preliminary study (Eden, Stein, & Wood, 1993) we sho wed that visuospatial and oculomotor tests can be used to differentiat e children with reading disabilities from nondisabled children. In the present study we investigated a larger sample of children to see if t hese findings held true. Using 93 children from the Bowman Gray Learni ng Disability Project (mean age = 11.3 years; 54 boys, 39 girls), we c ompared the phonological and visuospatial abilities of nondisabled chi ldren (children whose reading at fifth grade rated a Woodcock-Johnson reading standarized score between 85 and 115), and children with readi ng disability (whose reading standardized score was below 85 on the Wo odcock-Johnson). In addition to performing poorly on verbal tests, the children with reading disability were significantly worse than nondis abled children at many visual and eye-movement tasks. A high proportio n of the variance (68%) in reading ability of both the nondisabled chi ldren and those with reading disability could be predicted by combinin g visual and phonological scores in a multiple regression. These resul ts provide further support for the hypothesis that reading disability may, to some extent, result from dysfunction of the visual and oculomo tor systems.