Spacing Letters Apart Helps Dyslexia
From WebMD: http://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20120604/spacing-letters-apart-helps-dyslexia
June 4, 2012 -- Spreading the letters of words a bit farther apart helps dyslexic kids read more quickly and make fewer mistakes as they read, a new study shows.
While the strategy isn't a cure for dyslexia, which causes the brain to process information differently, researchers say it may help some children with the condition to read more easily, a key to helping them become better readers and learners overall.
In recent years, scientists have developed a greater understanding of a visual phenomenon called crowding -- a problem that affects a person's ability to recognize what they see.
When we look at words on a page, the eye and brain need to focus on and recognize characters within a narrow visual field.
Studies of people with dyslexia show that their brains may be overly attentive to information coming in from the edges of their vision.
That makes dyslexics very good at quickly absorbing and understanding the information in a scene or picture, but it makes reading more difficult.
"If these letters are too close to one another, the features intermix, so you're not able to tell which letter it actually is," Ziegler says.
While crowding has been known to be a problem for people with dyslexia for some time, Ziegler says little research has tested whether strategies to reduce crowding could improve reading.
Read the full story at: http://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20120604/spacing-letters-apart-helps-dyslexia