Inclusive Readability: Recommended Typographic Criteria for Improved Reading in Students with Learning Disabilities

Abstract

This paper considers the hypothesis that typographic shape and criteria may positively or negatively influence the reading performance of children with Specific Reading Disorders. We focus on children between the ages of 5 and 13 with Dyslexia and Visuospatial Difficulties or other similar disorders. We propose a theoretical approach, with a non-interventionist methodology of qualitative research, in which, through a literary review, we clarify what are Specific Learning Disorders, such as Dyslexia, Dysorthography, Dysgraphia, and Dyscalculia, and what is their interference in the reading process. Typography, psychology, and knowledge on neurologic development were used to characterise the neurological functioning of the reading process, both in fluent and dyslexic readers, who show sub-activity in the posterior brain systems (Phonological Deficit Theory). The aim is to understand how legibility and readability are processed in children with Specific Reading Learning Disorders. We analysed multiple typographic recommendations for Inclusive Education and found problems; the objective of this research is to improve reading skills in students with learning disabilities by developing typographic criteria specifically for this purpose. We present typographical recommendations and criteria to complement and improve existing decrees and regulations for inclusive education and conclude accepting our recommendations would be beneficial to students with learning disabilities. We present these typographic recommendations for use in the English and Portuguese languages.