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Saccadic eye training associated with improved reading fluency, study shows
Elementary students demonstrated higher reading fluency scores after saccadic eye training, as reported in a new Clinical Pediatrics study.
Leong and colleagues conducted a prospective, single-masked, randomized, crossover trial in which some of the participants underwent training for 20 minutes per day, 3 days per week for 6 weeks with King-Devick remediation software on reading fluency, as detailed in the study.
"Saccadic training can significantly improve reading fluency," the authors stated. "We hypothesize that this improvement in reading fluency is a result of rigorous practice of eye movements and shifting visuospatial attention, which are vital to the act of reading."
Several of the authors discussed the study results in a press release.
"The results of this pilot study suggest that the King-Devick remediation software may be effective in significantly improving reading fluency through rigorous practice of eye movements," Amaal Starling, MD, Mayo Clinic neurologist and a co-author of the study, said in the release. "What our study also found was that there was an even greater improvement between first and third grade vs. third and fourth graders, which means there may be a critical learning period that will determine reading proficiency."
"The outcome of this study suggests that early childhood intervention with a simple methodology of eye movement training via the remediation software, which is inexpensive and can be implemented in developed or developing cultures easily, might allow a lasting improvement in ability to read, with clear sociologic ramifications," Craig H. Smith, MD, neuro-ophthalmologist, chief medical officer, Aegis Creative, senior advisor, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and a co-author of the study, said in the release.
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