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Visual Processing Disorders
in Children
The Whys of Visual Processing
Vision & Reading
Vision & Writing
Vision & Social Problems
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Vision & Reading
Visual processing
problems commonly affect reading. Some of the most
common ways visual problems present:
Late Readers
Sometimes children
with visual memory difficulties, dyslexia, or visual
perceptual problems start reading later than we might
expect based on interest, general vocabulary, or letter
recognition. Because fluent reading requires moving the
eyes precisely across a line, recognition of letter
clusters and whole words, and there are visual demands
of reading beyond simple letter identification or
language.
Word & Line Skips
Word and line
skips are extremely common in children, but although
usually these improve with reading practice, some
children and adults require more specific intervention.
When untreated, missed words and lines take a serious
toll on reading comprehension and endurance.
Moving Letters, Doubling
Many children and
adults don't think to mention problems with moving
letters or intermittent doubling unless their asked
about it specifically (again because we don't really
think about how different our vision is from somebody
else's). Problems with moving letters or double can
occur as the result of weak gaze fixation or poor
coordination of the images coming from each eyes.
Problems of this sort slow down reading, increase the
likelihood of reading and spelling errors, and reduce
reading endurance.
Wild Guesses or Trouble Reading Long Words
Children who make
wild guesses with words often have trouble seeing the
wholes of words due to trouble moving the eyes smoothly
across a word or a limited visual span. Visual span
refers to the amount a person can "see" at one time.
This is can be a surprise to many people, but many weak
student readers can only see 1 to 3 letters at a time
when they look at individual words. Limited visual spans
can run in families, or be associated with dyslexia,
premature birth, or even mild prenatal stress or birth
injury.
"Careless" Mistakes
Students with
undiagnosed vision problems will often underachieve on
tests because of missed words on test questions or
instructions as in "Please mark the answer that is
not true..."
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