The effect of a specialized dyslexia font, OpenDyslexic, on reading rate and accuracy

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 Ar...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annals of dyslexia 2017-07, Vol.67 (2), p.114-127
Main Authors: Wery, Jessica J., Diliberto, Jennifer A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accuracy
Child
Comparative Analysis
Decoding (Reading)
Design
Dyslexia
Dyslexia - rehabilitation
Education
Effect Size
Elementary School Students
Female
Humans
Language and Literature
Layout (Publications)
Linguistics
Male
Naming
Neurology
Observation
Orthography
Printing - methods
Psycholinguistics
Reading
Reading Fluency
Reading Rate
Reading Skills
Social Sciences
Special Schools
Statistical Analysis
Student Attitudes
Students
Time
Typefaces
Visual Literacy
Word Lists
Word Recognition
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary: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 “new” or “different”, 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.
ISSN:0736-9387
1934-7243
DOI:10.1007/s11881-016-0127-1