Dyslexia & the Ophthalmologist

The Role of the Ophthalmologist in the management of Dyslexia

Dr Frank Martin has co-written an article published in the spring edition of Eye2Eye; RANZCO’s quarterly newsletter. The article, which you can read below, aims to address the issues around specific management of Dyslexia when it comes to the Ophthalmologist.

Reading difficulty/specific learning difficulty/developmental dyslexia is a common problem. Mild to moderate dyslexia occurs in 10–16% of children and severe dyslexia in 2–4% of children. Interestingly males and females are equally affected and difficulties with reading fluency are similar across languages.

“Management must be based on Science”

Over the years there have been a number of controversial treatments proposed for Dyslexia. A lot of these proposed treatments are based on anecdotal evidence with either no controlled trials to support their claims or where there controlled trials have taken place, the outcome has shown no evidence to support such treatments.

“As doctors, ophthalmologists have a responsibility to help families make the best use of limited resources. We should steer families away from unproven interventions that consume resources and thus interfere with the implementation of proven methodologies such as educational and language based therapy.”

To read the article, click on each page below to enlarge.

Prof Frank Martin