Within the framework of the theory of visual attention (TVA), the visual attention span (VAS) deficit among individuals with developmental dyslexia has been ascribed to the problems entailed by bottom-up (BotU) and top-down (TopD) attentional processes. The former involves two VAS subcomponents: the visual short-term memory storage and perceptual…

The aim of the present study was to investigate sustained attention and working memory in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), as this issue has not been widely investigated in this population. Children with ASD were age-matched with children diagnosed with dyslexia based on standardised reading assessments. All children were administered…

A controversy has recently developed regarding the hypothesis that developmental dyslexia may be caused, in some cases, by a reduced visual attention span (VAS). To examine this hypothesis, independent of phonological abilities, researchers tested the ability of dyslexic participants to recognize arrays of unfamiliar visual characters. Employing…

The goal of this study was to examine the post-treatment development of word and pseudoword accuracy and fluency and its cognitive and linguistic predictors in Dutch children with dyslexia compared with typical readers in the upper primary grades. Word and pseudoword reading accuracy and fluency were assessed at the start and end of grade 5 and at…

The present study examines the visual attention span deficit hypothesis in Chinese developmental dyslexia. Twenty-five Cantonese-speaking Chinese dyslexic children (DD group) were compared with 25 chronological-age-matched (CA) controls and another 25 reading-level-matched (RL) controls on their performance in visual attention span, reading, and…

In this study, we concurrently investigated 3 possible causes of dyslexia--a phonological deficit, visual stress, and a reduced visual attention span--in a large population of 164 dyslexic and 118 control French children, aged between 8 and 13 years old. We found that most dyslexic children showed a phonological deficit, either in terms of…

In EFL or ESL classrooms there may be those learners labeled as "slow learners" who struggle to concentrate and thus experience failure inevitably. In this study, we deal with dyslexia and inattention (ADHD) because current research suggests behind the slowness of such learners may lie a disorder that can be controlled. We am going to…

The present study describes experiences associated with parenting children diagnosed with learning disabilities. Parents whose children were diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, dyslexia/language problems, and Asperger syndrome, related to poor performance at school, took part in the study. A qualitative study design was…

Cognitive processes underlying a behavioural outcome (like reading ability) and the impact of familial risk (e.g., for dyslexia) have been studied in isolation. We present a novel design, linking the two avenues. How do familial influences impact on children's cognitive skills, which subsequently underlie reading development? Participants from the…

Poor parallel letter-string processing in developmental dyslexia was taken as evidence of poor visual attention (VA) span, that is, a limitation of visual attentional resources that affects multi-character processing. However, the use of letter stimuli in oral report tasks was challenged on its capacity to highlight a VA span disorder. In…

The simultaneous auditory processing skills of 17 dyslexic children and 17 skilled readers were measured using a dichotic listening task. Results showed that the dyslexic children exhibited difficulties reporting syllabic material when presented simultaneously. As a measure of simultaneous visual processing, visual attention span skills were…

Background: Comorbidity among developmental disorders such as dyslexia, language impairment, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and developmental coordination disorder is common. This study explores comorbid weaknesses in preschool children at family risk of dyslexia with and without language impairment and considers the role that…

A dissociation between phonological and visual attention (VA) span disorders has been reported in dyslexic children. This study investigates whether this cognitively-based dissociation has a neurobiological counterpart through the investigation of two cases of developmental dyslexia. LL showed a phonological disorder but preserved VA span whereas…

A visual attention (VA) span disorder has been reported in dyslexic children as potentially responsible for their poor reading outcome. The purpose of the current paper was to identify the cerebral correlates of this VA span disorder. For this purpose, 12 French dyslexic children with severe reading and VA span disorders and 12 age-matched control…

The visual attention (VA) span deficit hypothesis was found successfully to account for variability in developmental dyslexia (Bosse, Tainturier & Valdois, 2007). We conducted a cross-sectional study on 417 typically developing children from first, third and fifth grades examining the role of VA span on the development of reading skills. A battery…