University of Basel, University Eye Hospital, Basel, Switzerland.
Klin Monbl Augenheilkd. 2023 Apr;240(4):591-598. doi: 10.1055/a-2045-7271. Epub 2023 Apr 25.
Eye movement disorders have been observed in many eye diseases, such as amblyopia and developmental dyslexia. The detection of pathological eye movement behaviour is difficult and requires more data for comparison. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of age, school level, gender, and mother tongue on eye movements while reading.
One hundred and twenty-seven normally sighted children aged 7 - 12 were recruited from grades 2 - 5. The children were asked to read aloud two texts of The New International Reading Speed Text (IReST) of similar difficulty. Eye movements while reading were recorded by eyetracking technology (SMI RED 250, SensoMotoric Instruments, Teltow, Germany). The eye movement parameters were obtained from 118 children, and reading speed (words/minute), number of saccades, number of fixations, reading errors, and influence of school grade were analyzed.
We showed a significant influence of age in all eye movement parameters. The main finding of this study is that younger children performed more saccades, a higher number of fixations per word, and more reading errors while taking more time to read the text than older children in higher grades. In early grades, non-native German speakers read more slowly and performed more saccades and fixations, but no more differences were seen by grade 5. Overall, there was no significant influence of gender or school system on reading parameters.
This study highlights the need for an age-appropriate normative database for eye movements during reading.
眼球运动障碍在许多眼病中都有观察到，例如弱视和发育性阅读障碍。病理性眼球运动行为的检测较为困难，且需要更多数据进行比较。因此，本研究的主要目的是评估年龄、年级、性别和母语对阅读时眼球运动的影响。
从 2 年级到 5 年级招募了 127 名视力正常的儿童。要求这些儿童大声朗读难度相当的两段新国际阅读速度文本（IReST）。通过眼动追踪技术（德国 Teltow 市 SensoMotoric Instruments 公司的 SMI RED 250）记录阅读时的眼球运动。从 118 名儿童中获得了眼球运动参数，分析了阅读速度（每分钟单词数）、眼跳次数、注视次数、阅读错误和年级的影响。
我们发现所有眼球运动参数均受年龄的显著影响。本研究的主要发现是，年龄较小的儿童在阅读时比高年级的儿童进行更多的眼跳、每个单词有更多的注视次数、更多的阅读错误，且需要更多的时间来阅读文本。在低年级，非德语母语的学生阅读速度较慢，眼跳和注视次数较多，但到了 5 年级，这些差异就不再明显。总体而言，性别或学校体系对阅读参数没有显著影响。
本研究强调了阅读时眼球运动需要有适合年龄的正常参考数据库。
