https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202023812016
The influence of age, sex and visual dysfunction on reading ability in school-children
1 University of Minho, Centre of Physics, Rua da Universidade 4710 – 057 Braga, Portugal
2 Instituto Superior de Educação e Ciência, Alameda das Linhas de Torres 179, 1750-142 Lisboa, Portugal
3 Clinical Practice, Braga, Portugal
4 Senior Researcher, UK
5 University of Bradford, Optometry Department, Richmond Rd, Bradford BD7 1DP, UK
* Corresponding author: abaptista@fisica.uminho.pt
Published online: 20 August 2020
Binocular and accommodative dysfunctions affect the efficiency and coordination of the eyes, and this may impair reading performance. Reading can be evaluated using accuracy and speed measures. In this study, we searched for evidence that dysfunctions of accommodation (i.e. accommodation insufficiency, IA) and binocular vision (i.e. convergence insufficiency, CI) and also hyperopia have impact on reading ability. A sample of 292 children read a text following vision screening. The sample was composed of control children and children with the conditions: AI; CI and hyperopia. Multilinear regression analysis was used to evaluate the influence of variables sex, age and visual condition (control, AI, CI and hyperopia) on reading accuracy and speed. The results showed that ~7% of the variation in reading accuracy was explained by a model where age (p=0.001), and presence of AI (p<0.001) and hyperopia (p=0.019) were statistically significant. On the other hand, ~38% of the variation in the index of speed was explained by age alone (p<0.001). These results confirm the importance of age on children’s ability to read, and suggests that AI and hyperopia, but not CI may affect reading accuracy. Reading speed does not appear to be affected by the presence of binocular or accommodative dysfunction.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2020
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
