Portnoy Avi, Gilaie-Dotan Sharon
School of Optometry and Vision Science, Faculty of Life Science, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan 5290002, Israel.
The Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan 5290002, Israel.
Vision (Basel). 2025 Jun 4;9(2):48. doi: 10.3390/vision9020048.
Some estimates suggest that one in seven good readers and the majority of children with reading difficulties suffer from oculomotor dysfunction (OMD), an umbrella term for abnormalities in comfortable and accurate fixations, pursuits, and saccades. However, national vision evaluation programs worldwide are often limited to distance visual acuity (dVA), not testing for OMD despite its high prevalence and the ease of detecting it in brief optometric evaluations. We hypothesized that reading acquisition is dependent on good oculomotor functions, and therefore inadequate oculomotor control will be associated with reading difficulties. We retrospectively examined and compared oculomotor evaluations (using DEM and NSUCO) and reading assessments (using standardized national reading norms) of a normative class (28 first graders (6-7 yr. olds)) that were independently obtained while blind to the other assessment. Better oculomotor performance as estimated by DEM was associated with better reading performance, and almost a third (29.6%) of the children were categorized by DEM as having OMD-related difficulties. Control analysis revealed dVA was not positively associated with reading performance. Linear regression analyses further corroborated these findings. Since this study is based on a small cohort and since there are studies suggesting that DEM may actually reflect visual processing speed or cognitive factors rather than oculomotor function, replications are needed to substantiate the direct contribution of oculomotor functions to reading acquisition. Young children struggling with reading may benefit from a comprehensive visual evaluation, including oculomotor testing, to provide a more thorough assessment of their learning-related difficulties.
一些估计表明，每七个优秀阅读者中就有一个，以及大多数有阅读困难的儿童患有眼球运动功能障碍（OMD），这是一个统称，用于描述舒适且准确的注视、追踪和扫视异常。然而，全球范围内的国家视力评估项目通常仅限于远距离视力（dVA），尽管OMD患病率很高且在简短的验光评估中易于检测，但并未对其进行测试。我们假设阅读能力的获得依赖于良好的眼球运动功能，因此眼球运动控制不足将与阅读困难相关。我们回顾性地检查并比较了一个正常班级（28名一年级学生（6 - 7岁））的眼球运动评估（使用DEM和NSUCO）和阅读评估（使用标准化的国家阅读规范），这两项评估是在彼此不知情的情况下独立获得的。由DEM评估的更好的眼球运动表现与更好的阅读表现相关，并且几乎三分之一（29.6%）的儿童被DEM归类为有与OMD相关的困难。对照分析显示dVA与阅读表现没有正相关。线性回归分析进一步证实了这些发现。由于本研究基于一个小队列，并且有研究表明DEM实际上可能反映视觉处理速度或认知因素而非眼球运动功能，所以需要进行重复研究以证实眼球运动功能对阅读能力获得的直接贡献。阅读困难的幼儿可能会从全面的视力评估中受益，包括眼球运动测试，以便对他们与学习相关的困难进行更全面的评估。
