Dyslexia is a neurodevelopmental reading disability estimated to affect 5–10% of the population. While there is yet no full understanding of the cause of dyslexia, or agreement on its precise definition, it is certain that many individuals suffer persistent problems in learning to read for no apparent reason. Although it is generally agreed that early intervention is the best form of support for children with dyslexia, there is still a lack of efficient and objective means to help identify those at risk during the early years of school. Here we show that it is possible to identify 9–10 year old individuals at risk of persistent reading difficulties by using eye tracking during reading to probe the processes that underlie reading ability. In contrast to current screening methods, which rely on oral or written tests, eye tracking does not depend on the subject to produce some overt verbal response and thus provides a natural means to objectively assess the reading process as it unfolds in real-time. Our study is based on a sample of 97 high-risk subjects with early identified word decoding difficulties and a control group of 88 low-risk subjects. These subjects were selected from a larger population of 2165 school children attending second grade. Using predictive modeling and statistical resampling techniques, we develop classification models from eye tracking records less than one minute in duration and show that the models are able to differentiate high-risk subjects from low-risk subjects with high accuracy. Although dyslexia is fundamentally a language-based learning disability, our results suggest that eye movements in reading can be highly predictive of individual reading ability and that eye tracking can be an efficient means to identify children at risk of long-term reading difficulties.

Asthenopia was significantly associated with uncorrected visual acuity < or = 0.65 and with myopia (spherical equivalent -0.50 D or less) among Swedish schoolchildren.

In orbital floor fractures, the estimation of the herniated orbital content in the maxillary sinus has traditionally been the dividing line between surgical and nonsurgical management. In this study, we evaluated whether a relative change in volume would function as an indicator for surgical versus nonsurgical treatment of orbital floor fractures. This was a follow-up study in patients with untreated unilateral isolated orbital floor fractures admitted to our department from March 2003 to April 2007. Patients were contacted by regular mail and invited to have a clinical eye examination. The volume of the orbital content was calculated digitally from the patients' computed tomography scans at the time of their injury. Eighteen subjects with no facial skeleton fracture were included for reference of orbital content volumes. Five of 23 patients showed 2 to 4 mm of enophthalmos, and only three of them had intermittent diplopia. No statistical correlation was found between the herniated volume and enophthalmos. No statistical correlation supporting the supposition that 1 mL of herniated orbital content would result in 1 mm of enophthalmos was found. The relative volume change between the fractured and nonfractured orbit in an individual does not appear to be a useful criterion for surgery. The importance of the herniated orbital tissue for the development of enophthalmos is unclear.

Citation: Wibble T, Pansell T. Vestibular eye movements are heavily impacted by visual motion and are sensitive to changes in visual intensities.