Lexiad, the First Dyslexia-Specific Cyrillic Font Compared to the Popular Times New Roman and Roboto Fonts When Read by Adolescents

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Lexiad, the First Dyslexia-Specific Cyrillic Font Compared to the Popular Times New Roman and Roboto Fonts When Read by Adolescents LexiaD, the first dyslexia-specific Cyrillic font compared to the popular Times New Roman and Roboto fonts when read by adolescents Svetlana Alexeeva 1 Vladislav Zubov 2 1Institute for Cognitive Studies, St.Petersburg State University, St.Petersburg, Russia, [email protected] 2Ludmila Verbitskaya Department of General Linguistics, St.Petersburg State University, St.Petersburg, Russia Introduction Readability testing with a mobile Around 10% of the people have dyslexia, a neurological disability that im- eye-tracker pairs a person’s ability to read and write. Text presentation can be an important factor regarding the reading performance of people with dyslexia. Participants: 72 students of grades 8-10 (14-17 y.o.) without dyslexia. A bunch of Latin-based dyslexia-friendly fonts were designed: The previous study (Alexeeva et al., 2020) did not find difference between , , , . school children with and without dyslexia regarding the font effect. Despite assurances of the authors about positive effects of the fonts on read- Materials: Three connected texts about Easter Island from the Pro- ing performance of dyslexics, the first empirical studies failed to prove it: gramme for International Student Assessment manual (2020). OpenDyslexic (Wery and Diliberto, 2017; Rello and Baeza-Yates, 2013), Design: Each text in a different font: LexiaD (16 pt) / TNR (13 pt)/ Dyslexie (Kuster et al., 2018). Roboto (14 pt); physical font height was equal; order of fonts was random Recently, The Cyrillic font, LexiaD, has been developed for Russian- for each student. speaking people with dyslexia. Its key feature is reduction of inter-letter The title of the third text in LexiaD, TNR and Roboto (Did the Polynesian similarity of the Russian alphabet that was objectively measured in a pretest rats destroy Rapanui’s trees?): eye-tracking experiment (Alexeeva and Konina, 2016). In previous studies, LexiaD has demonstrated advantages over modern, highly rated by font ex- perts, but relatively unfamiliar PT Sans and PT Serif fonts when read by primary school children with and without dyslexia (Alexeeva et al., 2020). Objective Equipment: eye-tracker (glasses) Pupil Core (sample rate — 200 Hz) Statistical analysis: a linear mixed-effects model analysis for mean fix- In this study, LexiaD was compared to well-known fonts – Times New Ro- ation duration in R with font (TNR vs. LexiaD, vs. Roboto) as a fixed man (TNR) and Roboto (the font of the Google applications, similar to effect. The chi-square test for the subjective preference variables. Arial) when read printed versions of the texts by adolescents (readers with Results a considerable reading experience compared to primary school children). LexiaD, the first dyslexia-specific Cyrillic font A holoalphabetic sentence in LexiaD: LexiaD specification: Conclusion Results showed a significant decrease in mean fixation duration while read- ing in LexiaD. Therefore, LexiaD proved faster to read and could be con- sidered to be a facilitating font. How did we found inter-letter similarities? (a pretest eye- References tracking experiment) Svetlana Alexeeva and Alena Konina. Crowded and uncrowded perception of cyrillic letters in parafoveal vision: confusion matrices based on error rates. We registered (a) incorrect responses to every Russian letter after its brief Paper presented at the European Conference on Visual Perception 2016, Barcelona, Spain, 2016. Svetlana Alexeeva, Aleksandra Dobrego, and Vladislav Zubov. Towards the first dyslexic font in russian. In Proceedings of the Second Workshop on (parafoveal) presentation, (b) constructed a confusion matrix and (c) finally Linguistic and Neurocognitive Resources, pages 9–14, 2020. conducted cluster analysis to identify groups of similar letters. Sanne M Kuster, Marjolijn van Weerdenburg, Marjolein Gompel, and Anna MT Bosman. Dyslexie font does not benefit reading in children with or without dyslexia. Annals of dyslexia, 68(1):25–42, 2018. Luz Rello and Ricardo Baeza-Yates. Good fonts for dyslexia. In Proceedings of the 15th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on computers Acknowledgements and accessibility, page 14. ACM, 2013. Jessica J Wery and Jennifer A Diliberto. The effect of a specialized dyslexia font, opendyslexic, on reading rate and accuracy. Annals of dyslexia, 67(2): Supported by Presidential grant for young scientists NoMK-1373.2020.6. 114–127, 2017..
Recommended publications
  • IO3: Training Manual
    PrECIVIM Promoting Effective Communication for Individuals with a Vision Impairment and Multiple Disabilities IO3: Training Manual Training Manual Intellectual Output 3 (IO3) INTELLECTUAL OUTPUT 3: Policy Recommendations and Guidelines Report Key Action: KA2 - Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices Action Type: KA201 - Strategic Partnerships for school education Grant Agreement No.: 2017-1-EL01-KA201-036289 Prepared by: Babes Bolyai University (BBU): Andrea HATHAZI (Ed.) Cristina BĂLAȘ-BACONSCHI IoanaLetiția ȘERBAN Marian PĂDURE Contributors: All partners Intellectual Output: 3: Training material Email: [email protected] Form: Final Acknowledgements The present project “PrECIVIM: Promoting Effective Communication for Individuals with a Vision Impairment and Multiple Disabilities (No: 2017-1-EL01-KA201036289) funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union and coordinated by the State Scholarships Foundation (IKY). COPYRIGHTS The document may be freely copied and distributed provided that no modifications are made, that the source is acknowledged and that this copyright notice is included This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives 4.0 International License. TRAINING MANUAL Training Manual for developing competences of professionals in communication skills of children with visual impairment and multiple disabilities (MDVI) Andrea HATHAZI (Ed.) Cristina BĂLAȘ-BACONSCHI IoanaLetiția ȘERBAN Marian PĂDURE Acknowledgements This manual is developed within the Erasmus+ PrECIVIM project
    [Show full text]
  • Tolino Software Licence Document (PDF)
    Legal notices Copyright © 2017 Rakuten Kobo Inc. Rakuten Kobo Inc. 135 Liberty Street Suite 101 Toronto, ON M6K 1A7 Canada This product includes proprietary and Open Source software. Source code of the Open Source components can be downloaded from http://opensource.mytolino.com/ This product contains Adobe (R) Reader (R) Mobile Software under license from Adobe Systems Incorporated, Copyright (c) 1995-2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe and Reader are trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated. Acknowledgements Adobe RMSDK Adobe Reader Mobile SDK 9.3.2 This product contains Adobe (R) Reader (R) Mobile software under license from Adobe Systems Incorporated, Copyright (c) 1995-2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe and Reader are trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated. Android Open Source Project This product contains a customized operating system developed by Kobo Rakuten Inc. based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). The preferred license for the Android Open Source Project is the Apache Software License, Version 2.0 ("Apache 2.0"), and the majority of the Android software is licensed with Apache 2.0. While the project will strive to adhere to the preferred license, there may be exceptions that will be handled on a case-by-case basis. For example, the Linux kernel patches are under the GPLv2 license with system exceptions, which can be found on kernel.org. For more information, see http://source.android.com/source/licenses.html Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread Copyright (c) 2008 The Android
    [Show full text]
  • Access Ability 2: a Practical Handbook on Accessible Graphic Design
    ACCESS ABILITY A Practical Handbook on Accessible Graphic Design 2Revised + supeRsized Second edition This handbook was produced by the Association of Registered Graphic Designers with support from the Government of Ontario. The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 is the foundation for making Ontario more accessible. The Act establishes authority for the government of Ontario to supervise and review the legislation. The government also conducts outreach and education about accessibility laws and promotes the benefits of hiring people with disabilities. facebook.com/ONaccessibility youtube.com/ONgov twitter.com/ONaccessibility ontario.ca/accessibility © 2019 The Association of Registered Graphic Designers (RGd) 96 Spadina Avenue, Suite 210, Toronto ON M5v 2J6 Canada No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without the written permission the The Association of Registered Graphic Designers, the designers or any individual or corporate entity holding the copyright to this work. All work reproduced in this book has been accepted on the condition that it is reproduced with the knowledge and prior consent of the actual owner of the image; consequently no responsibility is accepted by The Association of Registered Graphic Designers for any infringement of copyright arising out of publication thereof. veRsion 2.0.1. Made in Canada. Access Ability 2 . A Practical Handbook on Accessible Graphic Design. Revised + Supersized Second Edition. Adam Rallo RGd · Eric Forest RGd · James Kuo RGd · Randal Boutilier RGd · Edmund Li RGd Contents. 3. Introduction. 33. Digital Media. 67. Physical Media. 34. Digital Accessibility. 68. Print Design.
    [Show full text]
  • Creation of a Japanese Typeface Designed for Readers with Dyslexia 1 Introduction
    Creation of a Japanese Typeface Designed for Readers with Dyslexia Xinru Zhu,∗ Shohei Yamada, and Kyo Kageura Graduate School of Education, the University of Tokyo 1 Introduction This paper introduces our research which aims to create a Japanese typeface and to develop a Japanese typeface customisation system for readers with developmental dyslexia. 1.1 Background Developmental dyslexia is “a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. It is charac- terized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities” [1]. Evidence shows that 5–17% of the population in English-speaking countries [2] and 3–5% of the population in Japan [3] have developmental dyslexia. In order to guarantee the right to equal access to books, knowledge and information for everyone including readers with print disabilities, it is essential to provide readers who have developmental dyslexia with an assistive environment. In this research, we focus on adjustments to typographic elements of written materials, especially typefaces, as a visual assistive tool for readers with dyslexia. Several Latin typefaces were recently created for dyslexic readers. Studies indicate that typefaces have significant positive impacts on readers with dyslexia in countries using the Latin alphabet [4]. With specially designed typefaces, readers with dyslexia are able to read with fewer errors [5], [6] or they simply prefer the specially designed typefaces compared to standard typefaces [7]. A recent study indicates that typefaces also affect readers with dyslexia in Japan [8]. The fact implies that Japanese typefaces designed for dyslexic readers would also be effective. 1.2 Problems Japanese typefaces for readers with dyslexia have not been created so far mainly because: (1) the characteristics of typefaces (both Latin and Japanese) for dyslexic readers have not been clarified, (2) Japanese typefaces contain a large number of complicated characters, and (3) to create a typeface that fits everyone with dyslexia is not easy.
    [Show full text]
  • The Following Full Text Is a Publisher's Version
    PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/191149 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2021-09-25 and may be subject to change. Ann. of Dyslexia (2018) 68:25–42 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11881-017-0154-6 Dyslexie font does not benefit reading in children with or without dyslexia Sanne M. Kuster 1,2 & Marjolijn van Weerdenburg1 & Marjolein Gompel1 & Anna M. T. Bosman1 Received: 5 December 2016 /Accepted: 9 November 2017 /Published online: 4 December 2017 # The Author(s) 2017. This article is an open access publication Abstract In two experiments, the claim was tested that the font BDyslexie^, specifically designed for people with dyslexia, eases reading performance of children with (and without) dyslexia. Three questions were investigated. (1) Does the Dyslexie font lead to faster and/or more accurate reading? (2) Do children have a preference for the Dyslexie font? And, (3) is font preference related to reading performance? In Experiment 1, children with dyslexia (n = 170) did not read text written in Dyslexie font faster or more accurately than in Arial font. The majority preferred reading in Arial and preference was not related to reading performance. In Experiment 2, children with (n = 102) and without dyslexia (n = 45) read word lists in three different font types (Dyslexie, Arial, Times New Roman). Words written in Dyslexie font were not read faster or more accurately. Moreover, participants showed a preference for the fonts Arial and Times New Roman rather than Dyslexie, and again, preference was not related to reading performance.
    [Show full text]
  • The Nexus of Accessibility and Pedagogy: What Every Online Instructional Designer Should Know
    The Electronic Journal for English as a Second Language February 2018 – Volume 21, Number 4 The Nexus of Accessibility and Pedagogy: What Every Online Instructional Designer Should Know * * * On the Internet * * * Maggie Sokolik University of California, Berkeley, USA <[email protected]> Introduction As a longtime instructional designer of online materials, I have been concerned with issues of accessibility for many years. I dutifully tagged every image, wrote out every URL, avoiding “click here” links, and formatted material on the screen considering its layout and elegance. This article will address the reasons why most of these practices were counterproductive, what the current state of the art in online accessibility is, and most of all, why making our online materials accessible should be the concern of every designer and instructor. My lack of full understanding of best practices was underscored a little over a year ago, when the U.S. Department of Justice filed a complaintagainst my university over our publicly- available online materials. Named specifically in the complaint was the inaccessibility of free audio and video content through YouTube, iTunes University courses, and MOOCs. Even more specifically, three of the MOOCs I developed and taught through edx.org (Principles of Written English, Academic and Business Writing, and English Grammar and Essay Writing) were named in the complaint. As a result, all inaccessible material was taken offline. Some of these materials, such as legacy webcasts that have no captions, have been taken offline permanently, due to lack of funds for captioning the hundreds of hours of lectures and other videos. However, the MOOCs offered by the university were only taken offline temporarily.
    [Show full text]
  • Reading Disability and Document Access, a Possible Approach
    Publications Office of the European Union Reading disability and document access, a possible approach FINAL STUDY REPORT Pilot Project 09 04 77 25 The European Commission is not liable for any consequence stemming from the reuse of this publication. Luxembourg: Publications Ofce of the European Union, 2020 © European Union, 2020 The reuse policy of European Commission documents is implemented based on Commission Decision 2011/833/EU of 12 December 2011 on the reuse of Commission documents (OJ L 330, 14.12.2011, p. 39). Except otherwise noted, the reuse of this document is authorised under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This means that reuse is allowed provided appropriate credit is given and any changes are indicated. For any use or reproduction of elements that are not owned by the European Union, permission may need to be sought directly from the respective rightholders. Print ISBN 978-92-78-42289-9 doi:10.2830/500074 OA-03-20-569-EN-C PDF ISBN 978-92-78-42286-8 doi:10.2830/061822 OA-03-20-569-EN-N Reading disability and document access, a possible approach FINAL STUDY REPORT Pilot Project 09 04 77 25 Publications Offce of the European Union This page has been intentionally left blank. Publications Office of the European Union – Reading disability and document access, a possible approach Contents FINAL REPORT .................................................................................................. 5 1. INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................5 2. SECTION I: USER GROUPS ..................................................................................9 2.1. Associations overview .............................................................................9 2.1.1. Identified user groups ........................................................................ 11 2.1.2.
    [Show full text]
  • The Readability Model for Natural and Artificial Languages
    JOURNAL OF MEDICAL INFORMATICS & TECHNOLOGIES Vol. 27/2018, ISSN 1642-6037 typography, information theory, programming language Marcin CHOLEWA1 THE READABILITY MODEL FOR NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL LANGUAGES This paper describes the model which allows an estimation of the readability factor of texts written in natural language or programs coded in syntax of programming languages. Only font styles are considered in this model. The destination of the model is improving readability. It can get though change font style. Several samples of text written in natural language have been used to estimation of the readability factor. Then these factors for given texts have been increased or reduced though intentional change font style. Studies have shown that deliberately changing the font style has a visible effect on improving readability or significantly lowering it. 1. INTRODUCTION This article gives answer to question: is it possible to create and determine the parameters of the model that would describe the readability of the written text. It would take into account texts written in natural language or codes written in programming languages to program computers. This question constitutes the main thesis of this article. In the further part of the article, a model will be presented, which will have the ability to influence the readability of the text using numerical parameters. The use of such a model will improve the readability of the text. In turn, improved readability will reduce the errors caused by text reading [16]. And such errors result from problems with distinguishing neighboring characters. A better distinction between two adjacent characters guarantees their correct reading and understanding of the meaning conveyed by signs and symbols.
    [Show full text]
  • Scarica Scarica
    formazione European Journalinsegnamento of Research on Education and Teaching Rivista internazionale di Scienze dell’educazione e della formazione & Anno XVIII • Numero 2 • 2020 Pubblicazione trimestrale IDENTITÀ, GENERATIVITÀ E TRASFORMAZIONI SOCIALI IDENTITY, GENERATIVITY, AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATIONS a cura di / editor Rita Minello With the contribution of / Con i contributi di: Luigi Aruta, Ferdinando Ivano Ambra, Patrizia Belfiore, Alessia Maria Aurora Bevilacqua, Chiara Borelli, Mario Caligiuri, Rafael Camargo, Silvia Coppola, Davide Di Palma, Francesco Fabbro, Valeria Friso, Alessandra Gigli, Claudio Girelli, Matteo Giuriato, Giancarlo Gola, Anita Gramigna, Rosa Indellicato, Emanuele Isidori, Nicola Lovecchio, Claudia Maulini, Domenica Maraviglia, Giannino Melotti, Mascia Migliorati, Rita Minello, Marco Nenzioni, Giorgio Poletti, Pasquale Renna , Stefano Scarpa, Rosa Sgambelluri, Patrizia Tortella, Rosa Vegliante, Viviana Vinci, Elena Zambianchi , Silvia Zanazzi &formazione La Rivista è insegnamentopromossa dalla S.I.R.E.F. (Società Italiana per la Ricerca Educativa e Formativa) e – a partire dal 2019 – è promossa anche dalla S.I.E.M.eS. (Società Italiana Educazione Motoria e Sportiva) Journal classified as “A” by the National Agency for the Evaluation of University and Research (ANVUR) RIVISTA FONDATA DA: UMBERTO MARGIOTTA† (Università Ca’ Foscari, Venezia) DIRETTORE RESPONSABILE: RITA MINELLO (Università degli Studi Niccolò Cusano, Roma). DIRETTORE ASSOCIATO: MARIO LIPOMA (Università Kore, Enna) per i numeri della sezione “Educazione
    [Show full text]
  • The Effect of a Specialized Dyslexia Font, Opendyslexic, on Reading Rate and Accuracy
    Ann. of Dyslexia DOI 10.1007/s11881-016-0127-1 The effect of a specialized dyslexia font, OpenDyslexic, on reading rate and accuracy Jessica J. Wery 1 & Jennifer A. Diliberto2 Received: 21 October 2015 /Accepted: 19 February 2016 # The Author(s) 2016. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract A single-subject alternating treatment design was used to investigate the extent to which a specialized dyslexia font, OpenDyslexic, impacted reading rate or accuracy compared to two commonly used fonts when used with elementary students identified as having dyslexia. OpenDyslexic was compared to Arial and Times New Roman in three reading tasks: (a) letter naming, (b) word reading, and (c) nonsense word reading. Data were analyzed through visual analysis and improvement rate difference, a nonparametric measure of nonoverlap for comparing treatments. Results from this alternating treatment experiment show no improvement in reading rate or accuracy for individual students with dyslexia, as well as the group as a whole. While some students commented that the font was Bnew^ or Bdifferent^, none of the participants reported preferring to read material presented in that font. These results indicate there may be no benefit for translating print materials to this font. Keywords Decoding.Dyslexia .Fluency.Font .Learningdisabilities.OpenDyslexic .Reading Introduction An estimated 15–20 % of English-speaking school-aged children experience difficulty learn- ing to read (International Dyslexia Association (IDA), 2007; Lyon, Shaywitz, & Shaywitz, 2003). Within the USA, the prevalence rate of dyslexia is estimated to be between 10 and 15 % (Fletcher, Lyon, Fuchs, & Barnes, 2007;Eden&Moats,2002). Since its discovery, dyslexia has been highly researched and debated (Washburn, Binks‐Cantrell, & Joshi, 2013).
    [Show full text]
  • How to Present More Readable Text for People with Dyslexia
    Universal Access in the Information Society manuscript No. (will be inserted by the editor) How to Present more Readable Text for People with Dyslexia Luz Rello · Ricardo Baeza-Yates Received: date / Accepted: date Abstract The presentation of a text has a significant readability · text color · background color · font size · effect on the reading speed of people with dyslexia. This character, line and paragraph spacings · column width. paper presents a set of recommendations to customize texts on a computer screen in a more accessible way for this target group. This set is based in an eye track- 1 Introduction ing study with 92 people, 46 with dyslexia and 46 as control group, where the reading performance of the Dyslexia is a neurological reading disability which is participants was measured. The following parameters characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or flu- were studied: color combinations for the font and the ent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding screen background, font size, column width as well as abilities. Secondary consequences may include problems character, line and paragraph spacing. It was found that in reading comprehension and reduced reading experi- larger text and larger character spacing lead the partic- ence that can impede growth of vocabulary and back- ipants with and without dyslexia to read significantly ground knowledge [43]. Since a great amount of infor- faster. The study is complemented with questionnaires mation is presented as text, this condition makes more to obtain the participants preferences for each of these difficult for people with dyslexia to access written in- parameters, finding other significant effects.
    [Show full text]
  • Assistive System for People with Dyslexia
    Masaryk University Faculty of Informatics DysTexia: Assistive System for People with Dyslexia A dissertation submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. D.) RNDr. BcA. Tereza Pařilová, DiS., MBA Brno, 2018 Declaration Hereby I declare that this paper is my original authorial work, which I have worked out on my own. All sources, references, and literature used or excerpted during elaboration of this work are properly cited and listed in complete refer- ence to the due source Tereza Pařilová Brno Abstract Assistive technology to support reading and understanding of a text has not yet been invented for dyslexia. Dyslexia is known as a specific learning or cognitive disorder. Some dyslexic users benefit abundantly from using screen readers, as well as passive aids, such as coloured filters. Games that can reveal dyslexia in children before starting school are also available, although just for a limited number of languages. However, none of these solutions represents a suitable approach to dyslexia itself. Dyslexia is known for its complexity and the de- pendence on a particular type of a language, which leads to the problem of in- dividuality and subsequently to the problem of finding a suitable and satisfac- tory solution for as many individuals with dyslexia as possible. The dissertation thesis approaches the individual nature of the symptoms (problems) from different perspectives and presents the proposed solution for considering the individuality and individual needs as far as the adjustment of texts is concerned. Furthermore, the dissertation proposes a comprehensive so- lution for customising both online and offline text. The dissertation thesis con- tains original test results of the designs, which were published as a user study in expert articles, and which contributed to a better understanding of the whole issue concerning the development of assistive technology intended for dyslex- ics.
    [Show full text]