Abstract
Digital texts can be made accessible to children with developmental dyslexia by presenting them in a simplified layout, using suitable fonts, or using text highlighting that is synchronized with audio. However, the impact of this last method on readability (as measured by eye movement) for children with developmental dyslexia remains unknown; it is unclear whether the color and length of text highlighting influences readability. We examined these issues in two experiments with seven children with developmental dyslexia (aged 7–14 years). In the first experiment, we clarified the relation between readability and text highlighting with synchronous audio by measuring the eye movements of children with developmental dyslexia. Readability was determined using the frequency of eye fixations. In the second experiment, we determined which styles of text highlighting best supported digital text reading among children with developmental dyslexia. Digital texts were created using different text highlighting colors and band lengths, and then were read using Apple iBooks on a 9.7-inch Apple iPad Air. We observed that children with developmental dyslexia found it easier to read along when audio was synchronized with text highlighting, particularly for the highlighting style that used a blue band for whole sentences. The second experiment showed that children with developmental dyslexia found it particularly easy to read digital texts that were highlighted with blue or yellow bands, both for single sentences and for single words. The method of presenting visual information for reading might help children with developmental dyslexia read more easily.
Highlights
Introduction and BackgroundDevelopmental dyslexia is a learning disability with a neurocognitive basis [1]
Combining highlighting with audio narration was found to be an effective method of facilitating readability of digital texts among children with developmental dyslexia in the present study
We investigated the influence on children with developmental dyslexia of reading text with audio narration
Summary
Introduction and BackgroundDevelopmental dyslexia is a learning disability with a neurocognitive basis [1]. About half of all children with developmental dyslexia complain of visual problems when attempting to read letters, such as letters appearing to blur, move around, and double [7]. When such children are able to see letters properly, reading can cause asthenopia and headaches [8]. Children with developmental dyslexia have been found to exhibit longer fixation durations and a greater number of fixations during reading than typically developing children [9] All of these issues can lead to reading disability, which can prevent children from obtaining needed information from standard printed materials. In the treatment of reading difficulties with color filters, children with visual reading problems increased their reading accuracy with the use of blue filters while reading text printed on paper [7]
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