ABSTRACT
The most widely accepted view of developmental dyslexia is that it is the consequence of an underlying verbal deficit (Vellutino, 1979), and a substantial body of research has stressed the pervasiveness of phonological impairments that prevent children from acquiring adequate reading and spelling skills (Snowling, 1987; Stanovich, 1988). In contrast, the role of visual deficits in developmental dyslexia has not been established. Despite the popular assumption that reading difficulties must be the consequence of visual deficits because reading is visible language, the involvement of visual factors in reading disability has not received consistent empirical support (see Willows, Corcos, & Kirk, 1993, for reviews). Nevertheless, there is currently a resurgence of interest in the role of visual deficits (Livingstone, Rosen, Drislane, & Galaburda, 1991; Lovegrove, Martin, & Slaghuis, 1986; Stein & Fowler, 1985), and it has been proposed that visual anomalies may be implicated in reading difficulties.
