Reading trajectories in typically developing children and children at risk of dyslexia

Dyslexia is a selective inability to master reading, which is reflected in the speed and correctness of reading, as well as in reading comprehension (Benfatto et al., 2016). It occurs in about 10% of the population (Sprenger-Charolles et al., 2011). Previous studies have shown that children with dyslexia read much worse than typically developing children: they fixate on words more and longer, reread words more times and skip words less. However, it was not previously clear how globally, that is, at the level of sentences, reading differs in children with dyslexia.

In this project we used the scanpath method. Scanpath is a sequence of eye movements when reading a sentence, the trajectory of the gaze. This measure allows you to go beyond the analysis of reading individual words and explore the reading of sentences and texts.

The study involved 72 typically developing schoolchildren and 72 schoolchildren at risk of dyslexia from 1st to 5th grade. Participants read sentences while the camera recorded their eye movements.

It turned out that the trajectories of eye movements of all participants are divided into 5 groups depending on the reading skill. The trajectories differ in the duration of fixation on words, the number of rereadings of words and sentences. Comparison of the two groups showed that reading in children at risk of dyslexia and typically developing children develops along the same trajectory, but with a three-year delay. In grade 1, typically developing children already use the third level of five (upper-intermediate), while children at risk of dyslexia use the first (beginner). In the fourth grade, typically developing children are at the fifth level (fluent), and children at risk of dyslexia do not reach it by the fifth grade.

Our study, firstly, showed that all children use fundamentally the same strategies for the development of reading, but there is a delay at the risk of dyslexia. Secondly, the recordings of eye movements of different groups of children allowed then to train the artificial intelligence model based on them to determine the child's reading skill by the movements of their eyes.

Publications

Parshina, O., Lopukhina, A., Goldina, S., Iskra, E., Serebryakova, M., Staroverova, V., & Dragoy, O. (2022). Global reading processes in children with high risk of dyslexia: a scanpath analysis.  Annals of Dyslexia , 72(3), 403-425.