Visual processing and decision-making in autistic and dyslexic children

Atypical sensory processing has been reported in a range of developmental conditions, including autism and dyslexia.

One aspect of sensory processing that is altered in both conditions is visual motion processing. Yet, few studies make direct comparisons between these conditions, so that it is hard to say whether atypical visual motion processing tells us anything specific about either condition, or whether it is a more general marker of atypical development.

In particular, we don’t know which stages of processing are affected in autism and dyslexia. For example, atypicalities could emerge in basic sensory encoding or in decision-making strategies.

Dr Catherine Manning will present the results of a project in which she used a combination of EEG and computational (diffusion) modelling to disentangle the multiple processes contributing to visual motion processing in autistic, dyslexic and typically developing children. The results identify both areas of convergence and divergence in autistic and dyslexic children’s visual motion processing, with implications for theories.