Syracuse

Improving reading through visual saliency: a remedial tool for neurodevelopmental disorders

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Vernet, Marie | Lété, Bernard | Danna, Jérémy | Massendari, Delphine | Chaix, Yves | Ducrot, Stéphanie

Edité par CCSD -

International audience. An expert oculomotor behaviour is classically reflected in a narrower spread of Initial Landing Positions (ILPs), around the Preferred Viewing Location (PVL), as observed in proficient readers with efficient lexical processing. In contrast, shorter and/or increased variability in the ILPs have been reported in poor, dyslexic, and novice readers (relying on a letter-by-letter decoding strategy). The aim of our study was to examine the usefulness of a tool enhancing the PVL saliency. Our hypothesis was that a brighter/coloured letter in a word could act as a salient signal for launching the saccade and modify the location of the ILPs. A lateralized lexical decision task was conducted with 18 children with dyslexia, 15 children with neurofibromatosis type 1 (7 with co-morbid reading deficits, RD) and 42 reading-level and chronological-age controls in three conditions of PVL saliency (colour, bright or neutral). The data revealed better performance for children with RD (independently of the disorder) with a salient letter at the PVL. This suggests that this manipulation can improve saccade targeting strategy for RD children, and encourage the systematic use of the lexical route, thus providing promising insights for therapists.

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