Vanessa Harrar of Britain's University of Oxford led the study. She tested 17 people with dyslexia and 19 others without any reading problems. The volunteers were asked to push a button as quickly as possible when they heard a sound, saw a light or experienced both together. Doctor Harrar compared the speed of their reactions. She found that people with dyslexia were just as fast as the others when they saw only a picture or heard only a sound. But the dyslexics had a slower reaction time when they heard a sound and saw a picture at the same time.
Doctor Harrar thinks that playing action video games could help dyslexic people move more quickly from seeing to hearing. She adds that fast moving images in video games force the eyes to move quickly. She says the games train the attention system to move quickly. The study also showed that dyslexic people might learn more quickly if they heard the sound of a letter or word before seeing it. This may affect how dyslexic children are taught to read.
For VOA Learning English, I'm Laural Bowman.