Vision, reading process correlated

TAMPA, Fla. – A study that evaluated young delayed readers found that the time a youngster fixated on a word before moving to the next directly correlates with how he or she would fare academically.

The findings were presented at the American Academy of Optometry by Aaron S. Franzel, OD, and Blaire O’Brien, OD, of the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

“Here we have a visual task that helps predict educational outcomes on achievement tests,” Dr. Franzel said during an interview with Primary Care Optometry News.

The study used last year’s The Pupil Project, a collaboration between the UMSL College of Optometry and College of Education.

According to the abstract, “we investigated ocular motor attributes with reading passages that were either appropriate for current grade level (GL) or close to current reading level (CRL) and their interactions with reading achievement skills as measured by the WIAT-II. Our intent was to determine if increasing the sight word component using CRL passages would result in greater correlations to aspects of reading achievement.”

One hundred thirty-five students, ages 6 to 17 years, were used in the analysis, all with reading levels within 2 years of their grade expectancy. The researchers measured the students’ oculomotor attributes using the DEM and Visagraph.

“Duration for fixation for GL and CRL passages were highly correlated, but there was significant independence between the two measurements,” the study found. “Results indicate duration of fixation measures, particularly with reading passages containing more sight words (CRL), correlate well with reading skills. Duration of fixation for CRL passages is a superior predictor of the influence of visual processing in single word reading/spelling.”

“This is important because we can look at and screen out kids who are going to be delayed readers,” Dr. O’Brien said. “There is a concrete connection between vision and the reading process.”