The Optimal Viewing Position for Children with Normal and with Poor Reading Abilities

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses optimal viewing position for children with normal and with poor reading abilities. A study described in the chapter compared undergraduates, normal 8 to 12 year olds, and 8–12-year old poor readers on a task where subjects fixated in different conditions on each letter position in five-letter words. Naming latencies for each letter position were recorded. Adults were shown to recognize words faster when allowed to fixate between the first and middle letters of a word. The U/J shaped curve is assumed to be the result of a decrease of visual acuity outside the fixation location, left-to-right processing of the words, and cerebral dominance of the subjects. The U/J shaped curve was also found in this study with free vision for adults, poor readers, and their chronological age controls. Data of the adults were very similar to those obtained in other studies with tachistoscopic and free vision. Manipulation of the children's initial fixation location seemed to have a larger effect than manipulation of the adults' initial fixation location despite the fact that the children's naming latencies were much longer, even after fixation on the optimal location. This was true both for the good and the poor readers.