Impact of Somatosensory Input Deficiency on Subjective Visual Vertical Perception in Children With Reading Disorders

Abstract

Purpose: Preliminary evidence indicated that children with a reading disorder (RD) may have deviance in their ability to perform high demanding cognitive tasks, such as reading, depending on somatosensory inputs. Until now, only anecdotical reports suggested that improving somatosensory inputs may influence their ability to maintain a stable perception of the visual world despite continuous movements of our eyes, head, and body. Here, we investigated whether changes in upright perception, the subjective visual vertical (SVV), were modulated by somatosensory inputs in a group of children with RD.Method: The SVV task was used under two distinct conditions, i.e., with or without somatosensory inputs from the foot. We enrolled a group of 20 children with reading disorders and 20 sex-, age-, IQ- matched children with neurotypical development.Results: Responses to the SVV task were found to be significantly less accurate in children with RD than in children with neurotypical development (p < 0.001). In the latter, SVV response did not depend on somatosensory inputs from the foot. In contrast, in children with RD somatosensory inputs, either improved or worsen their SVV depending on the tilt direction (p < 0.01).Conclusion: Our results suggested that SVV responses in children with RD could be related to an immaturity for heteromodal sensory integration, including somatosensory inputs.

Subjective visual vertical in patients with Usher syndrome

“…The participants is instructed to signal verbally or in case of profound hearing loss and sign language with a sign of his/her choice (acoustic or visible by the experimenter by means of the subdued light given by the computer) as soon as they perceived the laser line to be perfectly vertical, and this orientation was recorded. Five trials were performed in each direction for each subject [8]. Note that during the experimental procedure participants was unable to see anything in the room except the laser line on the wall.…”

Preventing Children From Developing Dyslexia: A Premature Writing Hypothesis

“…Reversed kinesthetic letter engrams may also account for findings that some poor writers are unable to identify letters with their eyes closed when their hand is guided (holding a stylus or pencil) in tracing the letter shapes (Orton & Gillingham, 1933). Finally, in children with reading disorders, Goulème et al (2019) found that subjective visual vertical perceptions were significantly better under counterclockwise than clockwise tilt conditions; and Vieira et al (2013) found that proprioceptive circle centering performance was more accurate in counterclockwise exploration.…”