A Virtual Reality Test Identifies the Visuospatial Strengths of Adolescents with Dyslexia

Abstract

Research suggests that the deficits characterizing dyslexia may also be associated with superior visuospatial abilities. Other research suggests that superior visuospatial abilities of people with dyslexia may not have been so far identified because of the lack of appropriate tests of real-life spatial ability. A recent small-scale study found that visuospatial superiority was evident in men with dyslexia. This study assessed the visuospatial ability of adolescents with dyslexia in order to determine whether these adolescents performed better on a pseudo real-life visuospatial test than did their nondyslexic peers. Forty-two adolescents took part in the study. There was an equal numerical split between the experimental and control groups. The experimental group all had a diagnosis of dyslexia by an educational psychologist or specialist teacher. Visuospatial ability was assessed using the Recall of Designs and the Pattern Construction subtests from the British Ability Scales (2nd edition; BAS-11) together with a computer-generated virtual environment test. The assessments were administered in a counterbalanced order. Adolescents with dyslexia tended to perform less well than their nondyslexic peers on the BAS-11 tests; however, this difference was not statistically significant. For the computer-generated virtual environment test (pseudo real-life measure), statistically significant higher scores were achieved by the dyslexic group. These findings suggest that adolescents with dyslexia may exhibit superior visuospatial strengths on certain pseudo real-life tests of spatial ability. The usefulness of these findings is discussed in relation to possible implications for assessment and educational intervention programs for adolescents with dyslexia.

Dyslexia and Enhanced Visuospatial Ability: A Maltese Study

“…When compared to average participants, teenagers with dyslexia exhibited better spatial orientation and an enhanced visualisation and reference memory on the virtual environment test. In comparison, Attree et al (2009) found no statistically significant difference between the two groups on the conventional visuospatial tests they used, these being part of the British Ability Scales battery.…”

“…More recent studies such as that by Attree, Turner and Cowell (2009) reported that the application of computergenerated tests holds some advantages over conventional tests when measuring the visuospatial abilities of participants with dyslexia. In their study, participants were encouraged to explore a virtual bungalow presented on a computer screen using a keyboard and were later asked to recreate the layout from memory using two-dimensional cardboard shapes.…”

“…All participants completed the Spatial Reasoning test (Smith & Lord, 2002a) which is a paper-and-pencil group administered test and the Virtual Bungalow test that was administered individually. This test was an emulation of the original test used by Attree et al (1996Attree et al ( , 2009) and Brooks, Attree, Rose, Clifford, and Leadbetter (1999). It was commissioned for this study using Unity software, a cross-platform game engine.…”

Visuo-Spatial Skills in Atypical Readers

“…This task has been used mostly on computer screens, and could be explored at other levels such as 3D or manipulatives, to gather more precise data on that apparent superior performance and what it means for people with RD. Further, while virtual reality methods are fairly new to the field, they may represent another type of task worthy of further study in RD samples, and some interesting work by a few authors has reported that RD differences may exist with a marked advantage of RD performance (see Attree, Turner, & Cowell, 2009;Wang & Yang, 2011;and others in Table 14.2). These methods may allow us to track more accurately RD VS abilities and learning by facilitating access to real-time behaviors, allowing to track timing, accuracy, and type of tasks that are best responded to.…”

Dyslexia and Post-Secondary Aural Skills Instruction

“…The relevance of this model is borne out by the outstanding career achievements of many creative individuals with dyslexia, among them American novelist John Irving, English business magnate Sir Richard Branson, and likely the Irish poet W. B. Yeats. (12) While the nature of these strengths is still the subject of much debate, one of the most convincing observations so far is that individuals with dyslexia often display superior visuospatial skills, especially their ability to manipulate three-dimensional objects in the mind and quickly spot "impossible figures" such as those in many of M. C. Escher's drawings (Attree, Turner, and Cowell 2009;von Károlyi 2001). The dyslexic astrophysicist Matthew H. Schneps has proposed that dyslexic individuals may be superior at tasks that recruit peripheral rather than central vision, putting them at a disadvantage when it comes to a sequential, narrowly focused task such as reading, but giving them an edge at identifying similarities between simultaneously seen but widely separated objects in space (Schneps, Rose, and Fischer 2007 Eide propose four particular reasoning strengths encapsulated in the acronym MIND: Material, Interconnected, Narrative, and Dynamic.…”