Investigating graph comprehension in students with dyslexia: an eye tracking study.
College students with dyslexia need extra time and cleaner visuals to read graphs.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Kim et al. (2014) watched college students with dyslexia read graphs.
They used eye-tracking cameras to see where eyes lingered.
Students looked at simple and complex graphs while the team timed every glance.
What they found
Students with dyslexia needed much longer to understand any graph.
Their eyes stayed on titles, legends, and bars far longer than peers.
The harder the graph, the bigger the gap became.
How this fits with other research
Zakopoulou et al. (2011) saw the same slow visual attention in Greek preschoolers.
Lallier et al. (2014) also found a narrow visual-attention span in bilingual kids with dyslexia.
Ben-Yehudah et al. (2019) looked at college students with ADHD and saw digital text hurt them too.
All four studies agree: processing print or graphics taxes extra time when a learning disability is present.
Why it matters
If you test or teach a client with dyslexia, give more time with any visual material.
Strip extra words and colors from graphs.
Offer the same data in a simple table or spoken summary.
These small tweaks lower the visual load and let the learner show what they really know.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine graph comprehension in college students with developmental dyslexia. We investigated how graph types (line, vertical bar, and horizontal bar graphs), graphic patterns (single and double graphic patterns), and question types (point locating and comparison questions) differentially affect graph comprehension of students with and without dyslexia. Groups were compared for (1) reaction times for answering comprehension questions based on graphed data and (2) eye gaze times for specific graph subregions (x-axis, y-axis, pattern, legend, question, and answer). Dyslexic readers were significantly slower in their graph comprehension than their peers with group differences becoming more robust with the increasing complexity of graphs and tasks. In addition, dyslexic readers' initial eye gaze viewing times for linguistic subregions (question and answer) and total viewing times for both linguistic (question and answer) and nonlinguistic (pattern) subregions were significantly longer than their control peers' times. In spite of using elementary-level paragraphs for comprehension and simple graph forms, young adults with dyslexia needed more time to process linguistic and nonlinguistic stimuli. These findings are discussed relative to theories proposed to address fundamental processing deficits in individuals with dyslexia.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2014 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2014.03.043