Sensory integration in children with dyslexia

Abstract

Learning difficulty is experienced by many children producing enormous problems to the educational system. When such a learning difficulty is observed in children with no specific causes, the term dyslexic is used to characterize this problem. Despite many studies, very little is known about the causes and reasons that lead dyslexic problems. Recently, many evidences have indicated that children with dyslexia also show difficulties or lower performance in many motor tasks. We also observed that dyslexic children show differences in the use of sensory information to control posture. Therefore, it was suggested that dyslexic children show difficulties to use available sensory stimuli in order to control and coordinate motor actions. Recently, it was suggested that dyslexia would be congenital and related to disorders in the cerebellum functioning, responsible to sensory-motor integration. Despite the pertinence of such a suggestion, it needs to be empirically examined. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the coupling between sensory information and motor action, in the conditions with visual and somatosensory information, in dyslexic children and children without learning difficulties. Considering that identification of dyslexic children occurs only after the beginning of alphabetization, if it is the cause that difference in the coupling between sensory information and motor action can be used to identify these children, such a identification would be occur much earlier. Moreover, if dyslexic causes are congenital, as recently suggested, these children could be enrolled in sensory motor program of intervention in order to avoid or minimize possible future problems.