Effects of Highlighting Text on the Reading Ability of Children with Developmental Dyslexia: A Pilot Study

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.

Providing Access to Text for Diverse Students With the EPub3 Format

“…The advantage of a well-designed digital book is that it allows readers to personalize their reading experience by taking advantage of the accessibility functions offered by a range of computer operating systems (Ikeshita et al, 2018). The Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act (2004) labels any item, piece of equipment, or product system that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of a student with a disability as assistive technology .…”

Effect of digital highlighting on reading comprehension given text-to-speech technology for people with aphasia

“…An important consideration when studying the effects of digital highlighting on reading comprehension is the extent to which people actually track the highlighted words as they are spoke aloud. Using eye-tracking technology may prove useful to monitor the eye movements of a person with aphasia while reading, as researchers have done with other populations (e.g., Ikeshita et al, 2018). Such procedures may provide clinicians with direction about optimal methods of supporting reading by people with aphasia.…”

Rainbow Math

“…The ability to highlight words as are they are spoken is less well studied. [ 4 ] studied dyslexic children reading Japanese, so the results are not necessarily applicable to reading English. They found that sentence highlighting with blue background most strongly reduced eye fixation time.…”