Left-Handed, Right-Eyed People Likely to Have Dyslexia, Psycho-Educational Clinic Reveals

A departure from the old theory that the rare disability of "word-blindness" is attributable to congenital weaknesses in controlling the centers of the brain, and the development of the belief that it may be caused by a condition of left or mixed dominance in the eyes and hands characterizes the trend of research now being conducted by Dr. Walter F. Dearborn and his associates at the Psycho-Educational Clinic of the Graduate School of Education.

"Word-blindness" is a semi-scientific term applied to "dyslexia" or the difficulty in reading which owes its immediate cause to the inability to see and remember words and letters in their ordinary order. Typical of "word-blind" readings are "saw" for "was", "tog" for "got", "broad" for "board."

Lateral Dominance

"It appears," says Dr. Dearborn, "that in order to avoid difficulties in reading and writing, one should be either left-eyed and left-handed or right-eyed and right-handed, and preferably the latter. Difficulties appear especially in children who have been changed over in handedness or whose one-sidedness or lateral dominance has never been well established."

He mentions several methods of dealing with dyslexia cases which have been used with moderate success. Among them is the system employed by Hinshelwood, an English physician, who first dealt with a number of these cases by resorting to the discarded alphabet method of learning to read by spelling out the words orally. This, Dr. Dearborn says, at least guaranteed the right direction of eye movements and their correlation with a sequence of letter sounds. For older children, typewriting has been utilized. This has the merit of being a bi-manual activity, and is thus suited to the ambi-dextrous.

Method of Testing

At the Harvard Psycho-Educational Clinic, the eyes of dyslexia subjects are tested to discover which eye is dominant or controlling. Among the examinations is a test involving a stereoscope through which each eye looks at a series of typed numbers or digits. Ordinarily the subject will make a choice between the left or right eye. Whereas occasional subject sees both sets of digits, he may be classified as lacking in any lateral ocular dominance. A tottery of "sighting" tests is required, since a single test has not been found adequate except when the lateral dominance is pronounced. Dominance in the hands is investigated through the activities of writing, drawing, throwing, and the like.

The key to the difficulties experienced by the dyslexia subjects, according to Dr. Dearborn, is the fact that in the English language the movements of the hand and eye are from the left to the right. This, it has been well established is the easiest and most natural movement for the right-handed person, away from the center of the body. Left-handed are left-eyed children have a preference for the opposite direction, that is, right to left.