ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the question what can be learned about reading disability from eye movement behavior. Recent studies of normal readers have begun to provide a background against which we can judge the eye movement and reading behavior of normal and disabled readers. These studies demonstrate that during reading the brain is constantly fed new information by the eyes and that processing of this information is very fast. Early research in this century on developmental reading disability showed some association between eye movement and visual perceptual disorders and reading failure, but closer scrutiny of the relationship between faulty eye movements and reading disability has shown that there is no causal association. Although a small percentage of disabled readers do show eye movement abnormalities, it has been suggested that the causal information processing may be visual-spatial disorientation and that faulty eye movements do not “cause” dyslexia (Pirozzolo & Rayner, 1979a).
