Sensory disorders screening in learning disabilities
(Dépistage des anomalies sensorielles dans les troubles de la lecture)

Billard C, de Villèle A, Sallée AS, Delteil-Pinton F.
Centre référent des troubles des apprentissages, hôpital Bicêtre, AP-HP, 94275 Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France
Catherine.billard@bct.aphp.fr.

Inserm French collective expert's report describes sensory disorders screening. However, the causality link with learning disorders remains questionable. In auditory disorders, there are high-level proof recommendations: early and intensive treatment improves language development, at least partially. For visual disorders, consensus conferences recognize their high frequency in learning disorders but there is no proof of a direct causality link. Currently, in learning disorders, orthoptic treatment is not recommended as a specific therapy. In France, despite medical ignorance about orthoptic assessment, absence of reference values and lack of therapy benefits evaluation, orthoptic treatment is usually prescribed, without any objective criteria. This article makes a literature review concerning the link between learning and sensory disorders. It also describes a typical orthoptic assessment with vision and optic musculature evaluation, and reports its results in a prospective comparative study in three populations (controls, dyslexic and Developmental Coordination Disorders [DCD] children). Strabismus or binocular vision disorders are frequent in DCD. Combined ocular motor function is almost constantly disturbed in DCD (90 %), whereas 34 % of dyslexic children and only 13 % of controls are concerned. Visual disorders are therefore present in learning disorders but also in normal population. Orthoptic assessment results must be interpreted in a multidisciplinary evaluation context.

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