Unimanual and bimanual visuomotor tracking by dyslexic and normal children.
Item
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Title
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Unimanual and bimanual visuomotor tracking by dyslexic and normal children.
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Identifier
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AAI9009794
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identifier
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9009794
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Creator
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Tomaino, Charlotte Anne.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Louis J. Gerstman
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Date
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1989
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, General | Psychology, Developmental | Psychology, Experimental | Biology, Neuroscience
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Abstract
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The purpose of this study is to examine the development of unimanual and bimanual motor skills of dyslexic children and compare their abilities with age/IQ matched normal readers and reading matched younger readers. Hypotheses were generated to examine the development of motor function as it relates to right/left differences, use of visual feedback, effects of direction of overflow in bimanual tasks and effects of direction of hand movement in bimanual coordination. The study also investigates the hypotheses suggesting the adolescents with poor reading ability will be characterized by bimanual motor skills below age expectancy and perform similarly to young children who have not as yet developed these skills due to incomplete neurological development such as myelinization of the corpus callosum.;In Experiment I, (unimanual skill) subjects manipulated a joystick for visuomotor tracking on a computerized video game. Dyslexics were significantly superior in both accuracy and speed to normal readers and demonstrated a significantly greater difference between right and left hand performance. In Experiment II, (bimanual skills) subjects simultaneously manipulated two potentiometer knobs on an Etch-a-Sketch like mechanism controlling the horizontal and vertical movement of the cursor on the computer monitor. The dyslexics remained faster but were no longer superior in accuracy. When the bimanual task was performed without visual feedback, dyslexic performance was no longer superior but was equal to normal controls in both accuracy and speed.;This finding argues against previously hypothesized perceptual-motor deficiency in dyslexia. The results of these three experimental tasks indicate that this pure dyslexic group is not equal to, nor deficient in perceptual motor skill, but is superior in the perceptual ability guiding their fine motor function. This conclusion argues that the differences between the dyslexic and age matched readers are in a perceptual superiority rather than a perceptual-motor deficiency.;Dyslexics were also compared to younger normal readers. Although the dyslexics performance was superior to younger readers in both experiments, arguing against interhemispheric collaboration difficulties in dyslexia, a subgroup of dyslexics (8/23) displayed similar characteristics to the younger readers in the quality of their bimanual motor function which was never observed in older readers.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
