Do learning-disabled children exhibit peripheral deficits in selective attention? An analysis of eye movements during reading.

It has been suggested that deficits in selective attention play a functional role in the learning and behavior problems of children diagnosed as learning-disabled. In the present study, peripheral and central aspects of selective attention were distinguished and peripheral aspects were examined. The attending eye movements during reading of 12 fifth-grade learning-disabled children who read at the third-grade level were compared with 12 fifth-grade children who read at the fifth-grade level (grade placement controls) and 12 third-grade children who read at the third-grade level (reading level controls). The learning-disabled children did not differ from their reading level controls on any of 10 measures but showed a pattern of eye movements that was generally slower and less smooth than their grade placement controls. While these patterns might be considered to be "immature" relative to normal readers of the same age, they are not indicative of peripheral deficits in selective attention. Males, however, did exhibit more variability in duration of fixations and made more regressive eye movements than did females.