Children with delayed reading skills and/or poor academic achievement are increasingly being referred to Eye Care Professionals with suspected eye movement/“tracking” difficulties. However, current clinical techniques are highly subjective, poorly controlled, and relatively imprecise. It is therefore reasonable to suggest that Eye Care Professionals face challenges in recognising and diagnosing genuine eye movement disorders, and consequently, fail to support and/or manage these children. The principal aim of the studies described in this thesis was to characterise eye movements in children with learning related difficulties who are frequently considered to be at risk of eye movement disorders. Using a novel child-friendly method, we have shown that, in general, eye movement characteristics in children with reading/learning related difficulties are not different from those in typically developing age-matched children when compared as a group. The findings also showed that when eye movement characteristics in children with reading/learning related difficulties were compared on an individual basis, some of these children had eye movement parameters outside their age-matched norms. Further, our results suggested that children whose eye movements were outside their age-matched norms, generally corresponded to those who had specific, more complex and global difficulties (e.g. dyspraxia, general developmental delay). In conclusion, the studies presented in this thesis suggest that there is an association between specific learning difficulties and eye movement disorders, but challenge the view that eye movement disorders can be found in isolation in children with delayed reading/academic performance. Finally, based on the sum of results obtained, simple actionable guidelines are proposed to improve the examination of eye movements in clinical practice in order to recognise genuine eye movement disorders.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:667925 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Vinuela Navarro, Valldeflors |
| Publisher | Cardiff University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://orca.cf.ac.uk/78616/ |
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