Attentional processes and dyslexia

Abstract

This review of attentional processes related to dyslexia examines the nature of the “attention” needed to acquire reading skills and proposes a definition of attention that combines elements of neurobiology and neuropsychology. Evidence for a relationship between reading problems and deficits in auditory and/or visual processing circuitry, which could be labelled “attentional deficits” is then outlined, and the final section reports research on possible underlying causes of the deficits from the fields of visual perceptual processing, neurophysiology, and neuroanatomy, and advances in the field of nonlinear dynamical theory, which may contribute eventually to our understanding of the temporal dynamics of neural systems in which “attention” is currently thought to play a part.