Reducing the barriers to computer use for a Dyspraxic student ( Not a dyslexic student)

Reducing the barriers for a Dyspraxic student

I recently worked with a Dyspraxic student looking at ways to reduce the difficulties/ barriers she experiences with text/reading/writing.

The student has been diagnosed as Dyspraxic, not dyslexic. 

There appears to be visual processing components to the barriers that……………… experiences.

By optimising the following aspects of the computer screen we were able to reduce/remove these barriers.

Font size……Increase needed.

Screen brightness/ ambient lighting…..Reduction in ambient lighting and screen brightness.

Screen background ‘colour’….. Precise, slight reduction in green pixel brightness compared with red and blue.

These I believe compound  the issue of her convergence ‘difficulties at near’;   that are associated with her very strong correction for near vision  which probably leads to her needing to be too close to the screen/ text when reading/writing, as if she is ‘short-sighted’. 

The intermittent alternate monocular visual suppression which is the visual system’s response to this would exacerbate her dyspraxia. There would be an associated clumsiness when reading or for 30 seconds to a minute after reading as ‘distance judging for fine motor activities would be compromised. More demand would be made for accurate Cerebellar calculations in terms of muscle tone management.

The viewing distance is possibly not actually a direct association with the long sight correction but in order to ensure that the image size on her retinas is an appropriate to maximise her ‘visual attention span’.  Raising the font would increase the this optimal viewing distance, reduce the convergence/fusion problems and hence give rise to  increased fluency, reduced demand on working memory and increased reading stamina.

It is also likely that the substantially reduced ambient lighting (from the wraparound shades) will increase the pupil diameter, contributing to and assisting the reduced background brightness which allows optimisation of the edge detection data process.

There was a slight but precise adjustment to the ‘colour of the background which further contributed to the barrier reduction.

Please note each of these comments is based on measured responses to changes in the viewing parameters.

No real change in the reading performance in Britain for the last 60years

No real change in the reading performance in Britain for the last 60 years.

Why should there be a change. There has been free universal access to education in Britain since 1944.  Changes in teaching method or style does really seem to have any effect.

All the ideas that have developed from the work I and others have been doing, supports the idea that your reading performance is a function of visual biology, need for glasses, retinal design/physiology,  font size, available working memory and the ‘nature of the language’.

These control

• Your reading speed.
• Your reading stamina.
• Your ability to understand what you have read in the context of your previous reading..and hence your enjoyment.

These all combine to control your ‘total reading experience and hence your ‘literacy’.

Read the rest of the posts in my blog, going back over the last year.

Only if we change the way we present text can we get more people to higher levels of literacy

.

Ours is probably the most opaque language. Tough.

The USA has at least simplified some of the spellings!

Finland has the simplest language to read /write. That is why it is at the top.

IT is not the ‘COLOR’ background that controls the reading of many dyslexic and other people.

IT is not the ‘COLOR’ background that controls the reading of many dyslexic and other people.

In this blog I have tried to put down many of my experiences in helping dyslexic adults and people who find reading ‘hard work. I have also tried to put it in the context of the theories and hypotheses that abound in reading.

I have to some extent fallen into the trap of writing about my work using mental constructs /ideas/language that really get in the way of the explanations. 

I write of…… color background and reading,

                …… font size and reading

I write of……Reading speed

                ……Reading performance

I really want to write about the Biology of reading.

 On a computer screen, when we change the background screen settings; all we really do is change the rate at which red, green and blue absorbing pigment molecules are able to capture photons and release electrons.  These electrons ultimately give rise to a burst of ‘waves of depolarisations’ (nerve impulses)  which supply ‘digital’ data allowing ‘edge detection and the ability for our visual cortex to discriminate between edges in the visual scene, the edges/ lines and nodes which we call letters on the page.

 If the image stays static, the eye is not moving relative to the letters, then the data stops being sent.

 Since the eye is continually moving as it ‘takes its pictures,’ the digital data has to be detailed enough, accurate enough and coordinated with data on the ‘movement’ for the visual cortex to compute for us a clear image such that the reading speed we achieve is fast enough for us to enjoy, understand the ideas being conveyed by the word sequence.

Changing the relative stimulation of the red and green cone cells, by changing the red and green component of the light from the background pixels, has to change the ‘rate’ at which the nerve impulses arrive at the visual cortex or we would not ‘notice any color change’.

It is only change in impulse frequency that ever changes. The impulses are all the same size.

So for each person there has to be a mathematical relationship between the red/green balance and the rate of data transfer from eye to ‘brain’/visual cortex.  There has to be a particular ratio/balance which sends the highest amount of data.

Is this what affects crowding and visual attention span and ultimately the development of automaticity reading fluency/performance and attention?

Possible reasons for about a quarter of schoolchildren in the UK having spelling and grammar problems.

Possible reasons for about a quarter of schoolchildren  in the UK having spelling and grammar problems.

Font size and biological diversity

(Font size matters)

Font size is an interesting variable. My colleagues and I have been measuring (calculating) which font size is optimal for each student for a couple of years now. This is an essential component of the protocols we have developed and has to be worked out before we consider other factors.

Most people will think of font size in the context of reading glasses; trips to the optician and deciding which of those lines of letters you can read clearly, or in low vision problems, where a person needs a larger font because of degrading eyesight from issues such as macular degeneration, or cataracts.

Another issue is the tendency to associate larger font size with poor academic performance, low intelligence or ageing.  These associations unfortunately leave a negative feeling and resistance towards the use of large size fonts, when they may be needed by people in the main stream population.

The inverse, the attitude to the use of small fonts, is that as we progress through the levels of education, the texts we have to encounter get increasingly smaller. In higher education there is an assumption that intelligent people can read small fonts. The decision makers (academically successful usually) in society tend to find small fonts easy. This use of small fonts, in itself of course as acts a ‘font ceiling’, restricting access to the higher levels of education to those who can cope with the small font sizes. 

Into this set of prejudices and assumptions appears the issue of wearing glasses. Too often, people assume that ‘the correct pair of glasses will enable a person to read small text. For a young person you can extrapolate this to the situation many schoolchildren find themselves in.

·        They go to an optician because of difficulties they experience with their eyes when they are reading
·        get a pair of glasses,

• ·        go back into class
• ·        Find that they still have problems, often still very severe when they try to read.

They then have two choices.

1.   Carry on wearing them and get called ‘stupid’ because they still find reading slow, difficult and possibly painful.
2. Stop wearing them, and get told off because ‘if you had your glasses you would be able to read’. The teachers regarding them and often making it quite clear, that they believe the child is ‘lazy’, ‘uncooperative’ not interested in learning and probably a trouble maker.
3. 
   
4. But a bigger font size might be all they need!
5. 
   

What I will do now is to try and look at the issues of ‘size’ diversity in the human visual system and start the consideration how this diversity could impact on the ‘font size needs’ of the population.

I will ignore, focussing, assuming that an optician has ensured that the physics of focussing has been dealt with. If the person needs glasses they have them (unfortunately this is often not true).

Physical size/dimension variations between people.

The retina.

The light sensitive cells at the back of the eye are arranged in a hexagonal arrangement (like honey comb).  There are two types.

a.     Rod cells... tiny cells used for night vision. Not used in reading.

b.     Cone cells. larger cells used in reading

c.      This picture shows a part of a person’s retina. The red and green cells are the main ones mainly involved in collecting the image when reading. The blue cells have a role, but there are very few of them and probably mainly concerned with getting the image of the word at the fovea.

d.     Notice that the ratio of red to green cells is unequal and they are clumped. This distribution is thought to be controlled by a similar mechanism to that controlling the stripes on a Tiger. Each person is different.

The cone cells at the centre are smaller than those at the edge and packed very closely.

Right at the centre (the fovea) they are extremely small... There are no rod shaped cells here. Actually the cone cells here are so small they are similar in size to the tiny rod cells.

The diameter of the cone cells and ‘proximity’ or tightness of packing is one important variable which controls how ‘coarse’ the image will be.  . The smaller the cone cells and more closely packed, the more detail.

A bit like the number of megapixels in a digital camera;

The more the better.

The fovea itself, with its tiny close packed cone cells, at the centre of the retina, is the reason why the eyes move quickly from object to object in a visual scene.

In the rest of the retina the cone cells are much larger,  and further apart from each other (more numerous rod cells in between them), getting larger towards the edge of the retina.

The data from the each foveal cone cells is treated independently whereas the data from the rest is processed in groups.

1)   So the way they are wired, the size of the groups of cells, together can vary from person to person.

2)   The size of the cone cells in the centre of the fovea can vary from person to person.

3)   The width of the fovea itself (the zone of small cone cells in the middle of the retina.

4)   The size of the cone cells as we move to the edge of the retina.

5)   The ratio of red to green cells varies dramatically from person to person. Some people have many times as many red as green and vice versa.

If we could give a numerical value to each of the five ‘size variables’ above we can see that there is a dramatic range of combinations in design and in a way the number of ‘megapixels in your cameras’...

For example if we consider the width of the Fovea, the central area of small close packed red and green cone cells.

If a person’s fovea is smaller than the average,

 then the smaller fovea will

a.    ‘Process’ fewer letters per fixation.

b.    More pictures will be needed to get through a sentence. Each ‘picture takes about the same time, about a third of a second.

c.    It will take longer to get through the sentence.

d.   Working memory will be compromised.

Beginnings of sentences may well be forgotten by the time the person has taken enough photographs to get to the end.

There is also what you may call a double whammy here. It is thought that if you have developed a smaller fovea then the cone cells in your fovea will be bigger than for those people with a bigger fovea! 

Eye movement during picture taking

An additional complication is that if the eyes are absolutely steady during a fixation then they stop working completely. They have to be constantly wobbling at very low amplitude so that the image is moving across the edges of the cells. It is the switching on and off of the cells which gives rise to the data that is computed by the brain to create the image. It sort of has to scan the image, the words.

This movement is a consequence of

a.   Muscle  contraction in the neck or movement of the object being viewed

b.   Changing contraction /muscle tone in the six muscles which otherwise move the object on to the fovea. The eye muscles have the job of micro movement of the image on the retina.

c.   All this muscle control is being managed by the cerebellum in the brain and feedback from the muscles themselves and feedback from the computation of the image on the retina. (A link to dyspraxia?)

The amplitude and frequency of these micro movements needs to be appropriate to the size of the cells collecting the data.  If there is a problem of muscle tone management in the eye movement muscles this will change this micro movement in terms of amplitude and possibly frequency.

Essentially all of these variables contribute to not whether you can see a word, but to how many milliseconds it will take for your system to collect enough data to identify the icons/ letter/word you are looking at and match that the phonics/sounds associated with it. That time will depend in addition on what patterns have been seen and identified before and how often they have been seen and identified in addition in the context of language, the syntax from the sequence of sounds which will affect the amount of visual data needed to identify each word.

The reading process (visual data collection and computation, in my world) requires an integrated system affected in its functioning by all these variables and most likely more.

If one is compromised, such as the contribution of head/ neck movement musculature, this is almost certain to compromise/ limit the reading process. Many people with whiplash or upper body trauma find their reading performance diminishes.

I could go on much further, but I will stop here. I hope that you can be aware then that there are considerable variations in the ‘sizes’ of the components of the visual system which influence what size of font will work best for you. Most people reading this blog will read best on around a font 12 or smaller, but in the general population it looks like over half of the people need a font greater than 14 to read fluently for long periods. If you need a bigger font copy it onto a word doc.

Read thye other posts for further technical information.

The Myth of Yellow overlays and Glasses for dyslexic adults?

The issue of ‘yellow’ overlays is associated, I think with the idea that ‘ it makes the text stand out’.

The fovea really only has red and green sensitive cells in it.  The Blue sensitive cells are just not there.  You can argue that a person will always respond to a small yellow component in a visual scene. ( exploited by wasps and poisonous ‘beasties’  warning you ‘ not to touch’!  Basically any ‘yellow (red/green cell stimulating) object on a scene will elicit a saccade to it so that you can

• ·        work out where it is.
• ·         examine it.
• ·          avoid it.

Car rear number plates are black and yellow for that purpose ..sort of!

Lawyers I believe use yellow paper often.. Possibly for the idea of a ‘quick’ read as well.

John’s ( Stein)  work on magnocellular difference ( deficit)shows a connection between blue light stimulating the magnocellular system through the blue/yellow channel and some other cells in the retina has supported the ‘idea that yellow or Blue is ‘good’ for dyslexic people and especially with his glasses from the DRT.

However in discussions with him at the Oxford Symposium, he was happy to point out that because of the pupil reflex the glasses also either decreased the red component or increased it relative to the green which made my ideas and his much closer than he had realised!

The ‘’yellow’ idea also can affect the way that the Intuitive colorimeter has been used. When I was working in collaboration with the IOO and collaborating with Cerium Visual technologies around 12 years ago, we used to send students off to a particular Hospital optometry department where they were using the Intuitive colorimeter, when following the protocols in force, it had become clear that there was a ‘definite benefit’ for the student.

Ok the rule was that ‘ the glasses colour would not be the same as the overlay that the student had chosen  by the forced choice system protocols’ of the Intuitive Overlays from the IOO.

BUT at the time we were the only people actually measuring the benefit of interventions.  I always try to ensure  proper audit.  The students came back with the coloured glasses and we compared their performance with them compared with the overlays and the coloured computer screen.

This particular leading hospital suddenly started to send everyone back with yellow glasses. The students got very little benefit from them.

I followed up with conversation with the quality control people at Cerium, where the glasses were being made.

No one there had noticed any change, there was no auditing system in place. When I checked with the hospital, it turned out that the person trained to use the Intuitive Colorimeter had moved on and a new person was now in charge of it. They had never been on the course with Cerium and thought that ‘Yellow was good for dyslexics’ and had effectively been guiding the students!

There is a tendency to use ‘cream’ or buff as well but this  is likely to be just about reducing the luminance down to around 80% which is you look at the data we have collected appears to be the modal luminance for the thousands of dyslexic students my colleagues have worked with.

There is no data  supports the ‘colour’ cream as being better than any other ’pastel shade’ it has just become a bit of an accepted myth propagated by many websites that give it as a default,

One of the problems of these myths is that because most people/students do not respond positively to them there are loads of false negatives and as a result nobody actually looks for what might work in a logical fashion. This leaves many ‘coping’ with avoidable visual problems, small visual attention spans and reinforces the idea ‘ that you have to live with your problems’

Font size. Such an easy starting point to reduce barriers to reading. Critical Print Size

Font size.  Such an easy starting point to reduce barriers to reading. Critical Print Size

Yesterday I met the daughter of a friend who I taught with years ago. She always had difficulties in school, which were ‘diagnosed’ as Dyslexia when she went to the local FE College.

No one at school suggested that she may have a barrier to reading that could be reduced or removed.

The conversation which took place went over her experiences as a person growing up with dyslexia and how she was ‘assisted’.

She recounted how her difficulties got worse when she started in secondary school.  The drop in font size was a real problem for her. So much so that at the age of 12 she went to an optician where she was identified as significantly short sighted with an astigmatism in both eyes.

In secondary school, she did not like practical work which involved reading instructions or writing. She was very messy or clumsy if she mixed the practical work with reading and writing. This is a very typical story that I hear from adult dyslexic people.  Where possible she would work in a team and leave the reading and writing to other members of the team…. No problems then.

This did not solve her problem though.  In a way it must have reinforced in her the idea that she just was not really academic. The optician could not fix her problem.   She was still very aware that the reading was really limited by the small font sizes being offered to her, in all the books and print outs.

With smaller fonts the letters seemed to crowd each other, especially the ends of the words, which she would guess at. After a short period of slow reading the letters and lines would start to move, become unstable.

At the FE College, she was referred to an Educational Psychologist, who duly tested her and pronounced her ‘dyslexic’. Unfortunately, she was unable to read the ‘report’ and did not understand the ideas when explained to her.  This is a common experience of dyslexic undergraduates.  It is often as if they do not recognise the report as really being about them.

Back to my friend’s daughter. 

At the college the support staff went through ‘testing for ‘colour’. A range of ‘coloured plastic sheets’ were placed on to text.

Some stabilised the text for a short time, then the movement and crowding would start again. She has a ‘bluish filter’ which sort of helps sometimes.  But a larger font always does!

I am writing this today, after a few weeks without a blog following a spinal problem which has made it difficult to use my computer, because yesterday I received an email from a group of dyslexia specialists which I am a member of which included a link to a particular website.

http://www.dnamatters.co.uk

Now the people who run this website are great people, I have tremendous respect for them. I have tried to engage them in a dialogue, but just get ignored. Perhaps they know something about me that I do not. Let’s consider the website, please look at it as you read this.

The first thing that hits you is the bit of graphics on the home page with the philosophy of the two main people at DNA and amongst others, that well respected ‘honourable /co-opted dyslexic Albert Einstein.

Now this is a good start.  Large font, not a white background.

Then we get into body of the website.

Welcome to DnA, a social enterprise story

designed and led by dyslexic and disabled

 adults working with the sole purpose to

 provide support, strategies, Assistive

 Technology training and shared wellbeing.

The website appears to be defaulted to Arial 10.5 font.  From work with dyslexic undergraduates in the UK the following histogram has been produced showing the ‘optimum font size, needed to stop the dyslexic student’s reading performance being limited by font size.

Ignore the pretty colours but look at the column on the left. 

There were 3 students who had a critical font (print size) less than 11!

In this histogram of the last 345 dyslexic students seen by my colleague, 99% would be restricted by the font size on the website.

Over half of them needed a font size of 16. They would still be restricted if the default was font 16.

This is in no way a new idea. Other studies have found a close relationship between font size and reading performance. One report suggested that font size management is a major reason for the popularity of Kindles, in addition to that lovely grey background.

In work being undertaken with a primary school, font size is the starting point in reducing barriers to reading. You can see a close link between oral reading fluency and critical print size. An adjustment that could be made in all printed materials at the school and in extreme cases using a computer screen.

I will publish this in Font 20 as well. There are issues in terms of restricting the space for advertising on the web… sorry to you graphics artists.

Back to the website.

Taking our cue from the expressed philosophy let’s consider accessibility. How can the user of the website reduce the barriers for themselves?

There is an accessibility option at the top of the site.  This gives the opportunity to raise the font to a massive Font 12!!!!!

Welcome to DnA, a social enterprise

 story designed and led by dyslexic and

 disabled adults working with the sole

 purpose to provide support, strategies,

Assistive Technology training and

 shared wellbeing.

                                                    

Ok that fantastic possibility will now bring improved access to…

..another 7% …..of the dyslexic adults reading this site, leaving another 92% struggling because of font size.

Mind you they probably think they are struggling because they are dyslexic!

I will quote someone who, on the occasions when I talked with him gave me great hope about what could be.

‘Attitude is indeed the biggest disablement. We all have the ability to change the attitude of others. ‘

Unfortunately that ‘attitudes’ that we strike up for ourselves; unwillingness to remove /reduce obvious boundaries restricts our ability to change the attitude in others.

I worked for a few years with a group of inspiring, severely physically disabled young people at Hephaistos School, when I first started teaching. They taught me a great deal.  First remove /reduce the barriers.  

And now at font 20

Font size.  Such an easy starting point to reduce barriers to reading. Critical Print Size

Yesterday I met the daughter of a friend who I taught with years ago. She always had difficulties in school, which were ‘diagnosed’ as Dyslexia when she went to the local FE College.

No one at school suggested that she may have a barrier to reading that could be reduced or removed.

The conversation which took place went over her experiences as a person growing up with dyslexia and how she was ‘assisted’.

She recounted how her difficulties got worse when she started in secondary school.  The drop in font size was a real problem for her. So much so that at the age of 12 she went to an optician where she was identified as significantly short sighted with an astigmatism in both eyes.

In secondary school, she did not like practical work which involved reading instructions or writing. She was very messy or clumsy if she mixed the practical work with reading and writing. This is a very typical story that I hear from adult dyslexic people.  Where possible she would work in a team and leave the reading and writing to other members of the team…. No problems then.

This did not solve her problem though.  In a way it must have reinforced in her the idea that she just was not really academic. The optician could not fix her problem.   She was still though very aware that the reading was really limited by the small font sizes being offered to her, in all the books and print outs.

With smaller fonts the letters seemed to crowd each other, especially the ends of the words, which she would guess at. After a short period of slow reading the letters and lines would start to move, become unstable.

At the FE College, she was referred to an Educational Psychologist, who duly tested her and pronounced her ‘dyslexic’. Unfortunately, she was unable to read the ‘report’ and did not understand the ideas when explained to her.  Again this is a common experience of dyslexic undergraduates.  It is often as if they do not recognise the report as really being about them.

Back to my friend’s daughter.

At the college the support staff went through ‘testing for ‘colour’. A range of ‘coloured plastic sheets’ were placed on to text.

Some stabilised the text for a short time, then the movement and crowding would start again. She has a ‘bluish filter’ which sort of helps sometimes.  But a larger font always does!

I am writing this today, after a few weeks without a blog following a spinal problem which has made it difficult to use my computer, because yesterday I received an email from a group of dyslexia specialists which I am a member of which included a link to a particular website.

http://www.dnamatters.co.uk

Now the people who run this website are great people, I have tremendous respect for them. I have tried to engage them in a dialogue, but just get ignored. Perhaps they know something about me that I do not. Let’s consider the website, please look at it as you read this.

The first thing that hits you is the bit of graphics on the home page with the philosophy of the two main people at DNA and amongst others, that well respected ‘honourable /co-opted dyslexic Albert Einstein.

Now this is a good start.  Large font, not a white background.

Then we get into body of the website.

Welcome to DnA, a social enterprise story

designed and led by dyslexic and disabled

 adults working with the sole purpose to

 provide support, strategies, Assistive

 Technology training and shared wellbeing.

The website appears to be defaulted to Arial 10.5 font.  From work with dyslexic undergraduates in the UK the following histogram has been produced showing the ‘optimum font size, needed to stop the dyslexic student’s reading performance being limited by font size.

Ignore the pretty colours but look at the column on the left.  There were 3 students who had a critical font (print size) less than 11!

In this histogram of the last 345 dyslexic students seen by my colleague, 99% would be restricted by the font size on the website.

Over half of them needed a font size of 16. They would still be restricted if the default was font 16.

This is in no way a new idea. Other studies have found a close relationship between font size and reading performance. One report suggested that font size management is a major reason for the popularity of Kindles, in addition to that lovely grey background.

In work being undertaken with a primary school, font size is the starting point in reducing barriers to reading. 

You can see a close link between oral reading fluency and critical print size.  An adjustment that could be made in all printed materials at the school and in extreme cases using a computer screen.

I will publish this in Font 20 as well. There are issues in terms of restricting the space for advertising on the web… sorry to you graphics artists.

Back to the website.

Taking our cue from the expressed philosophy let’s consider accessibility. How can the user of the website reduce the barriers for themselves?

There is an accessibility option at the top of the site.  This gives the opportunity to raise the font to a massive Font 12!!!!!

Welcome to DnA, a social enterprise

 story designed and led by dyslexic and

 disabled adults working with the sole

 purpose to provide support, strategies,

Assistive Technology training and

 shared wellbeing.

                                

Ok that fantastic possibility will now bring improved access to…

..another 7% …..of the dyslexic adults reading this site, leaving another 92% struggling because of font size.

Mind you they probably think they are struggling because they are dyslexic!

I will quote someone who, on the occasions when I talked with him gave me great hope about what could be.

‘Attitude is indeed the biggest disablement. We all have the ability to change the attitude of others. ‘

Unfortunately that ‘attitudes’ that we strike up for ourselves; unwillingness to remove /reduce obvious boundaries restricts our ability to change the attitude in others.

I worked for a few years with a group of inspiring, severely physically disabled young people at Hephaistos School, when I first started teaching. They taught me a great deal.  First remove /reduce the barriers.