ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that visual skills do in fact correlate remarkably well with reading performance, and that many children with reading problems have unstable visual perceptions which are probably caused by unstable visuomotor control. The visual superiority that the authors found in younger children matched for reading age could not be attributed to their having had more reading experience. Since their reading ages were the same as the dyslexics, so was their reading experience. The visual 'transient' system begins at the large magnocellular ganglion cells in the retina. These project to the magnocellular layers of the lateral geniculate nucleus and to the superior colliculus. Motion detection is the visual function for which it is generally agreed that the magnocellular system is essential. In humans the right Posterior Parietal Cortex is more important for visual localisation; whilst the left probably plays a more important part in phonological processing.
