Dyslexia Not Linked To Vision Problems: Researchers

A new study has claimed that dyslexia is not linked to vision problems in children. Researchers have claimed that there is no proof that vision-based treatments and therapies can help treat the learning disorder in children.

The study was an attempt by the researchers to understand if vision therapies or opthalmic interventions, such as use of colored filters, could help dyslexic children. However, they found no evidence of any relation between the two. In addition, they found that most of the dyslexic children had an absolutely normal vision.

The study, put forward by researchers at Bristol and Newcastle universities in Britain, analyzed data for more than 5,800 children between ages 7 and 9. The researchers gathered the data from a large cohort study in the 1990s that comprehensively examined the eyes of the children. The researchers found that vision problems occur rarely in children with dyslexia, with a similar occurrence in nondyslexic children.

“Some practitioners feel that vision impairments may be associated with dyslexia and should be treated. However, our study results show that the majority of dyslexic children have entirely normal vision on the tests we used,” lead author Dr. Cathy Williams said in a statement.

However, some researchers dispute the findings. They believe that the type of opthalmic tests used in the cohort study and the way the team analyzed the data resulted in a reduced level of variance among the two groups of children. They believe that the current research is a Yes/No type of study that fails to examine the issue from a broader perspective.

The study findings have been published in the journal Pediatrics.