A study in the relationship between visual processing and
phonological processing in Primary school children
I keep trying to get others to look at the role of visual
processing in the question of ‘to read or not to read’, so central to what
journey each person goes on through life.
I am a now associated with a group of people who are determined
to make sure that in the UK at least the contribution of visual processing as a
barrier to reading is minimised.
A colleague optician and I are about to embark on a pilot
scheme with primary school children to find out just what can be achieved.
We will report all of our findings, anonymised of course.
It will look at the issues of.
- Optometric need
- Orthoptic need
- Visual attention span/perceptual span
- Crowding
- Font size
- Computer screen background
- Reading performance
This will be a longitudinal study and will cost us and
the associated school a great deal of time.
The information which it reveals will be open to others
to interpret.
It is hoped that it will contribute to the planning of
the larger scale programme we envisage.
I am confident that many will regard this as anecdotal
and be dismissive of it as not being a ‘DBPCT’, a double blind Placebo
controlled trial. They may even dismiss it as being undertaken by people with a
commercial interest.
Most likely that would
be the response to any favourable outcomes that appear to contradict their own
mental constructs, their version of truth.
If so then I challenge them to invest their time and
energy into a parallel trial which tests their hypotheses.
The design of the pilot will be published in this blog.
Readers and interested parties are welcome to contribute their ideas on its structure
through emails and the blog itself.
Contributions suggestions will be published in the blog.
Remember this is about real life intervention. It is
about maximising reading performance. NOT about pure science.
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