Facoetti Andrea, Lorusso Maria Luisa, Paganoni Pierluigi, Umiltà Carlo, Mascetti Gian Gastone
Dipartimento di Psicologia Generale, Università degli Studi di Padova, Via Venezia, 8, 35131, Padova, Italy
Brain Res Cogn Brain Res. 2003 Jan;15(2):154-64. doi: 10.1016/s0926-6410(02)00148-9.
Shifting of visual attention induced by peripheral cues was studied in 24 children with specific reading disorder (SRD) or dyslexia and was compared with that of 19 normal readers by means of a covert orienting paradigm. This paradigm presents participants with valid, neutral and invalid spatial cues preceding the presentation of a target stimulus. As compared to normal readers, in SRD children the inhibition effect (i.e. the difference between neutral and invalid cues) was absent. The 24 SRD children were divided into two groups matched for age, IQ and reading ability to study the efficacy of two different rehabilitation procedures. We assessed the effects on reading accuracy and speed over a 4-month treatment with visual hemisphere specific stimulation (VHSS; J. Learn Disabil. 25 (1992) 102) vs. traditional speech training. The VHSS program trains participants to perform rapid endogenous attentional orienting by presenting briefly flashed words in the peripheral visual field. We found that children treated with VHSS showed significant changes in their attentional inhibition process, as indicated by increased costs for 'reorienting' the attentional focus. As this treatment program also proved to be highly efficient in improving the children's reading abilities, the possible causal relationship between reading and inhibition mechanisms of visuospatial attention was discussed.
通过隐蔽定向范式，对24名患有特定阅读障碍（SRD）或诵读困难的儿童的外周线索诱发的视觉注意力转移进行了研究，并与19名正常阅读者进行了比较。该范式在呈现目标刺激之前向参与者呈现有效、中性和无效的空间线索。与正常阅读者相比，SRD儿童不存在抑制效应（即中性线索和无效线索之间的差异）。将24名SRD儿童根据年龄、智商和阅读能力分为两组，以研究两种不同康复程序的效果。我们评估了在为期4个月的治疗中，视觉半球特异性刺激（VHSS；《学习障碍杂志》25（1992）102）与传统言语训练对阅读准确性和速度的影响。VHSS程序通过在外周视野中呈现短暂闪现的单词，训练参与者进行快速的内源性注意力定向。我们发现，接受VHSS治疗的儿童在注意力抑制过程中表现出显著变化，表现为注意力焦点“重新定向”的成本增加。由于该治疗方案在提高儿童阅读能力方面也被证明非常有效，因此讨论了阅读与视觉空间注意力抑制机制之间可能的因果关系。
