Learning Disabilities, Dyslexia, and Vision
Learning disabilities constitute a diverse group of disorders in which children who generally possess at least average intelligence have problems processing information or generating output. Their etiologies are multifactorial and reflect genetic influences and dysfunction of brain systems. Reading disability, or dyslexia, is the most common learning disability. It is a receptive language-based learning disability that is characterized by difficulties with decoding, fluent word recognition, rapid automatic naming, and/or reading-comprehension skills. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonologic component of language that makes it difficult to use the alphabetic code to decode the written word. Early recognition and referral to qualified professionals for evidence-based evaluations and treatments are necessary to achieve the best possible outcome. Because dyslexia is a language-based disorder, treatment should be directed at this etiology. Remedial programs should include specific instruction in decoding, fluency training, vocabulary, and comprehension. Most programs include daily intensive individualized instruction that explicitly teaches phonemic awareness and the application of phonics. Vision problems can interfere with the process of reading, but children with dyslexia or related learning disabilities have the same visual function and ocular health as children without such conditions. Currently, there is inadequate scientific evidence to support the view that subtle eye or visual problems cause or increase the severity of learning disabilities. Because they are difficult for the public to understand and for educators to treat, learning disabilities have spawned a wide variety of scientifically unsupported vision-based diagnostic and treatment procedures. Scientific evidence does not support the claims that visual training, muscle exercises, ocular pursuit-and-tracking exercises, behavioral/perceptual vision therapy, “training” glasses, prisms, and colored lenses and filters are effective direct or indirect treatments for learning disabilities. There is no valid evidence that children who participate in vision therapy are more responsive to educational instruction than children who do not participate.
from Pediatrics
Posted on March 1, 2011, in Research and tagged dyslexia, eye examination, learning disabilities, ophthalmology, vision, vision therapy. Bookmark the permalink. 1 Comment.
COMD News 
Visual interventions that claim to be beneficial for all learning disabilities or dyslexics typically have a business model of ” take the money and run “.
Just because a very large majority of dyslexics have no visual problems does not mean that there is not a small minority whose reading problems have a visual cause called visual dyslexia.
Most visual dyslexics can be identified by asking one simple question. Can you describe visual problems that make reading difficult? Those that describe the letters moving around or words with missing letters or parts of letters as a source of their reading problems are not going to be helped by cognitive based interventions.
See Right Dyslexia Glasses is a niche product that remove described visual problems that make reading difficult. Those with reading difficulties that can not describe having visual problems as causal to their problems can not expect improvements with a product that only removers visual problems.
Visual dyslexia problems are caused by a sensitivity to visual noise. The visual noise is caused by autofluorescent proteins absorbing and then emitting photons on a new path that no longer is relevant to the viewed object and overwrites valid optical information. The specific wavelengths of light involved with autofluorescent proteins can be filtered out which extinguishes the visual noise and removes the problems.
The concept of auditory noise sensitivity in dyslexics as a cause of difficulties understanding speech in a noisy room is poorly understood but documented. FMRI data used to understand dyslexia is too crude to identify what part of the brain actually filters out auditory or visual noise. It seems poor science to exclude the same results seen in the visual centers as the phonological areas of the brain and conclude that dyslexia is only phonological.
IMO visual dyslexia is tainted by those with visual interventions that claim, without qualifications ,that learning disabilities and dyslexia are vision based. If only dyslexia was better understood as a syndrome so that minority problems could be included in the paradigm , many of the misunderstandings about dyslexia could be resolved .