Activity: Talks or Presentations › Other Invited Talks or Presentations
Description
In the Departmental Brown Bag Meeting, Dr. Sisi Liu talks about the effects of visual-spatial attention on typical reading and developmental dyslexia. To date, studies on reading development have predominantly focused on linguistic correlates. The roles of non-linguistic, basic perceptual-attentional skills have been relatively underexplored. Our recent studies reveal that visual-spatial attention, as measured by visual search skill, predicted Chinese reading achievement longitudinally and differentiated between children with and without dyslexia. We also found that visual-spatial attention contributed to Chinese reading beyond some well-established linguistic predictors. The role of top-down attention may be more important for reading than bottom-up attention. The findings suggest the value of understanding the whole cognitive underpinnings of reading development.