Schuett Susanne, Heywood Charles A, Kentridge Robert W, Zihl Josef
Department of Psychology, Science Laboratories, University of Durham, Durham, UK.
Brain. 2008 Dec;131(Pt 12):3156-68. doi: 10.1093/brain/awn285. Epub 2008 Nov 3.
Unilateral homonymous visual field disorders after brain damage are frequently associated with a severe impairment of reading, called hemianopic dyslexia. A specific treatment method has been developed which allows patients to regain sufficient reading performance by re-learning eye-movement control in reading through systematic oculomotor practice. However, it is still unclear whether the treatment effect associated with this training procedure critically depends on using text material. We therefore evaluated the effectiveness of systematic oculomotor training with non-text material (Arabic digits) in comparison with conventional oculomotor training using text material (words) in 40 patients with unilateral homonymous visual field disorders and hemianopic dyslexia. Non-text training was found to be as effective as conventional text training in improving reading performance and associated eye-movements in these patients. Our results suggest that using words is not critical to the treatment effect of this training procedure. Thus, lexical-semantic processes seem not to be necessary for re-learning eye-movement control in hemianopic dyslexia.
脑损伤后出现的单侧同向性视野障碍常常与严重的阅读障碍相关，即偏盲性阅读障碍。已经开发出一种特定的治疗方法，通过系统的眼动练习重新学习阅读中的眼动控制，使患者能够恢复足够的阅读能力。然而，与这种训练程序相关的治疗效果是否关键取决于使用文本材料仍不清楚。因此，我们评估了40名单侧同向性视野障碍和偏盲性阅读障碍患者使用非文本材料（阿拉伯数字）进行系统眼动训练与使用文本材料（单词）进行传统眼动训练的效果。结果发现，非文本训练在改善这些患者的阅读能力和相关眼动方面与传统文本训练同样有效。我们的结果表明，使用单词对这种训练程序的治疗效果并非至关重要。因此，在偏盲性阅读障碍中重新学习眼动控制似乎不需要词汇语义过程。
