Fixation disparity curve in dyslexic adults

Dyslexia is a worldwide disorder in children and adults. The visual characteristics of dyslexics has been studied with variable results. One area of interest is fixation disparity (FD). This is a measure of alignment of the oculomotor system during binocular fusion. A graphical plot of the FD as it changes as a function of induced prisms before the eyes results in a forced vergence fixation disparity curve (FDC). The associated phoria is defined as the prism needed to return the FD to the ortho position. We performed FD evaluations and compared FDC characteristics with a group of 50 subjects: 25 dyslexic adults and 25 typically reading adults. The comparisons suggest that exo FD and the absolute amount of associated phoria tend to be higher in dyslexic adults. Moreover, they experience more instability of FD compared to the controls. They also have more limited convergence range and total vergence range. Both instability in motor responses and reduced vergence ranges indicate that binocular instability is likely to occur in dyslexic adults.