For those who doubt a visual perceptual component to dyslexia or existence of the visual word form area, here's another important study. It's a case report, but because of it's careful analysis, it was able to demonstrate that there is an area of the brain that is important for the visual recognition of whole words.
When the patient underwent surgery (for epilepsy), postoperative it was found that he was no longer able to "automatically" recognize whole words. He could still identify words laboriously or letter-by-letter. It was harder for longer words.
This is important work, as phonological aspects of dyslexia still dominate some research and educational circles - especially here in the United States. But the truth is that some children have more trouble with the visual aspects of dyslexia more than sound. In fact in a week or so, we're going to present some interesting findings about gifted dyslexics at the Wallace Symposium in Iowa. Some brilliant dyslexics are able to use memory strengths to compensate for some of the phonological aspects of reading ("I memorize words so I don't have to figure out how to sound them out...") - but they can't always use their powerful memories to compensate for visual or orthographic aspects of dyslexia.
Maybe you've seen this before: ""hte huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe"; but at the link below, polyglots can observe the whole word effect (being able to recognize words although many internal letters are out of sequence) in Spanish, French, Russian, Icelandic, and more.
Visual Word Form Area, Reading, and fmriWhole Word Reading
When the patient underwent surgery (for epilepsy), postoperative it was found that he was no longer able to "automatically" recognize whole words. He could still identify words laboriously or letter-by-letter. It was harder for longer words.
This is important work, as phonological aspects of dyslexia still dominate some research and educational circles - especially here in the United States. But the truth is that some children have more trouble with the visual aspects of dyslexia more than sound. In fact in a week or so, we're going to present some interesting findings about gifted dyslexics at the Wallace Symposium in Iowa. Some brilliant dyslexics are able to use memory strengths to compensate for some of the phonological aspects of reading ("I memorize words so I don't have to figure out how to sound them out...") - but they can't always use their powerful memories to compensate for visual or orthographic aspects of dyslexia.
Maybe you've seen this before: ""hte huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe"; but at the link below, polyglots can observe the whole word effect (being able to recognize words although many internal letters are out of sequence) in Spanish, French, Russian, Icelandic, and more.
Visual Word Form Area, Reading, and fmri
Whole Word Reading