Comparison of eye movements of students with and without dyslexia in visual perception tasks

The aim of this study was to compare eye movements of students with and without dyslexia in visual perception tasks. Method used in the present research  was causal-comparative and the study population consisted of all male and female students of primary schools in the City of Tehran, with and without dyslexia, studying in regular schools (Kherad and Parsa), as well as in the learning disabilities centers (Goharmehr and Taravat) in 96-97 academic year. The sample consisted of 25 dyslexic and 27 normal students who were selected via convenient sampling. The data was gathered using an eye tracking device called SMI-RED. The stimuli were 21 pictures based on TVPS-3 which were presented via the eye tracking devise. Data was analyzed using Mixed ANOVA. Findings showed that generally there is not significant difference between eye movements of students with and without dyslexia at visual perception tasks. However, by entering the moderator variable of the levels of task difficulty, there were significant differences between two groups in fixation duration and saccade duration. It can be argued that the problems of dyslexic individuals is probably not due to difficulties in visual processing level, but it seems that they have difficulties in the higher levels of psychological processing. When the tasks become more difficult, the attention and processing activities make some differences in eye movements which dyslexic students don’t benefited from those strategies. It is probably possible to change the monotony of the eye movements of dyslexic children by enhancing their visual perception.