Professor
mwilliam@uno.edu

Research Interests

Dr. Williams' research has focused on developmental disorders, especially developmental dyslexia and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in childhood and adulthood. Specific topics have included visual processing deficits in dyslexia, the effects of stimulus contrast and wavelength on visual processing in dyslexia, interventions for dyslexia, attention processing deficits in dyslexia and ADHD, auditory processing and affect processing in ADHD, and ADHD symptomology in college students. The results of this program of research have shown that dyslexic and ADHD individuals demonstrate timing deficits in the magnocellular visual system which disrupt basic visual processes such as contrast processing, higher level visual operations such as reading, and basic attentional operations such as selective and divided attention. A series of intervention studies led to the development of simple interventions, such as altering stimulus spatial frequency, contrast, and wavelength, which effectively compensate for the deficit in the magnocellular system, and result in improvements in reading and attentional performance.

Book Chapters

Williams, M.C., LeCluyse, K., & Littell, R.R. A wavelength-Specific Intervention for Reading Disability. In Vision and Reading, R. Garzia (Ed.), Mosby Publishers, 283-305, 1996.

Williams, M. C., LeCluyse, K., & Rock-Faucheux, A. The Effects of Wavelength on Visual Processing and Reading Performance in Normal and Disabled Readers. In Facets of Dyslexia and its Remediation, S. Wright & R. Groner (Eds.), North Holland, 1993.

Lovegrove, W. J. & Williams, M. C. Visual Temporal Processing Deficits in Specific Reading Disability. In Visual Processes in Reading and Reading Disabilities, D. Willows, R. Kruk, E. Corcos (Eds.), Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, N. J., 1993.

Williams, M., Lovegrove, W. Temporal processing deficits in specific reading disability. In Applications of Parallel Processing in Vision (Advances in Psychology Series), J.R. Brannan (Ed.), Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., 1991.

Selected Recent Publications

Greve, K.W., Brooks, J., Crouch, J.A., & Williams, M.C. (1997). Factorial structure of the Wisconsin Card Sorting test. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 36, 283-285.

Greve, K.W., Williams, M.C., Haas, W.G., Littell. R.R., & Reinoso, C.B. (1996). The role of attention in Wisconsin Card Sorting test performance. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 11, 215-222, 1996.

Greve, K.W., Williams, M.C., & Crouch, J.A. (1995). An evaluation of the equivalence of the stimulus subsets of the California Card Sorting Test. Assessment, 2, 391-398.

Lovegrove, W. J. & Williams, M. C. (1993). Visual temporal processing deficits in specific reading disability. In, D. Willows, R. Kruk, & E. Corcos (Eds.), Visual processes in reading and reading disabilities (pp. 311-329). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Williams, M., Breitmeyer, B., Lovegrove, W., & Guiterrez, C. (1991). Meta-contrast with masks varying in spatial frequency and wavelength. Vision Research, 31, 2017-3033.

Williams, M., LeCluyse, K., and Bologna, N. (1990). Masking by light as a measure of visual integration time in normal and disabled readers. Clinic Vision Sciences, 5, 335-343.

Williams, M.C., LeCluyse, K., & Littell, R.R. (1996). A wavelength-specific intervention for reading disability. In R. Garzia (Ed.), Vision and reading (pp. 283-305). Mosby Publishers.

Williams, M. C., LeCluyse, K., & Rock-Faucheux, A. (1993). The effects of wavelength on visual processing and reading performance in normal and disabled readers. In S. Wright & R. Groner (Eds.), Facets of dyslexia and its remediation. North Holland.

Williams, M. C., Littell, R. R., Reinoso, C. B., & Greve, K. (1994). Effect of wavelength on performance of attention-disordered and normal children on the Wisconsin Card Test. Neuropsychology, 8, 187-193.

Williams, M.. & Lovegrove, W. (1991). Processing deficits in specific reading disability. In J.R. Brannan (Ed.), Applications of parallel processing in vision (Advances in Psychology Series). Elsevier.

Williams, M.C. & May, J.G. (1996). On a failure to replicate: Methodologically close, but not close enough. A response to Hogben et al. Vision Research, 36, 1509-1511.
Williams, M. C., May, J. G., Solman, R., Zhou, H. (1995). The effects of spatial filtering and contrast reduction on visual search times in good and poor readers. Vision Research, 35, 285-291.

Williams, M., LeCluyse, K., & Rock-Faucheux, A. (1992). Effective interventions for reading disabilities. Journal of the American Optometric Association, 63, 411-417.

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last modified 07/15/2008