Visual Function and Execution of Microsaccades Related to Reading Skills, in Cerebral Palsied Children

This article investigates the ability of cerebral palsied (CP) children to execute microsaccades. One-hundred and five congenitally CP school aged children (6 to 15 years old), without severe mental retardation, were classified into three groups: those with spastic quadriplegi, spastic diplegics, and spastic hemiplegics on the basis of: (1) patient anamnesis, (2) IQ estimation, (3) evaluation of the microsaccadic skills with the Developmental Eye Movement test (DEM). Their performance in these tests was compared with a control group from the general pediatric population. IQ of the CP children ranged between 70 and 100; the microsaccadic skills were severely affected: only 19% of the CP children had normal function, 20.9% of the CP children appeared with a pure oculomotor problem, 32.4% of the CP children had a visual-perceptual problem, and 27.7% of the CP children had a combined oculomotor and visual perceptual problem. CP children, in the absence of severe mental retardation, have disturbed visual skills and visual perception that usually leads to reading difficulties. It is also suggested that microsaccadic skills of CP children is an identifiable factor compounding the adverse effects of mental retardation on reading skills.