Accurately Assessing Visual Deficits in Children With Developmental Dyslexia

To the Editor The recent article by Raghuram et al makes numerous assumptions about the association between eye movements and reading. One important assumption is that the Developmental Eye Movement (DEM) test is a measure of eye movements. However, the original article describing this test does not appear to provide any empirical evidence that there is any association between saccadic eye movement and reading. It does not seem sufficient for Raghuram et al to dismiss this assumption with the statement, “Some have questioned whether DEM is a valid measure of saccadic eye movements.”(p1094) Ayton et al have shown that the DEM test does not correlate with saccadic eye movement skill and is closely associated with reading performance. Thus, the DEM may just be a proxy test of reading skill. If thi s is the case, then the conclusion drawn by Raghuram et al that their study demonstrated evidence of eye movement abnormalities in children with developmental dyslexia would seem to be confounded.
Source: JAMA Ophthalmology - Category: Opthalmology Source Type: research