See Also:
- Retained Primitive Reflexes
- Postural Reflexes
- What causes learning disabilities?
- Three Pillars of Reading
- Background
- Neuro-Developmental Delay
Learning, in the academic sense, is dependent on reading. Sighted reading in turn is founded upon three pillars of visual behaviour:
1. Visual Signal Acquisition (VSA): Anticipating and planning to move the eyes to a desired target, calculating the movement required, executing the movement, then holding fixation long enough to register the signal. The word on the page has not yet registered in the mind.
2. Visual Signal Processing (VSP): The image of the object in space (the words on the page) now registers in the brain and is recognized as a familiar pattern. The object is now represented in a usable cortical representation and can be passed along to further analysis in the brain, such as ‘reading’, that is, language and symbolic processing. aka Visual Information Processing (VIP).
3. Language Analysis: The ‘gestalt’ or ‘quantum’ of the text on the page, that is, the recognizable span of text acquired in one fixation, is passed along for higher-level processing. This is the domain of conscious thought, and sensory integration, such as the visual representation of sound, as in words.
These elements rely upon the ability to attend to a task as well as the presence of good motor control and advanced reflexes. (See ‘Retained Primitive Reflexes’ and ‘Neurodevelopmental Delays’.
We identify risks to reading and learning in all three areas, or ‘pillars’. Remedial plans are then designed to bolster skills according to areas of identified need. See www.drboulet.com or enter a search term (above) to learn more.