A meta-analysis of eye-tracking studies on text processing in children with reading disabilities

Objectives: Children with reading disabilities (RD) are at higher risk of becoming scholastic underachievers and having behavioral problems than typical reading children. It is therefore very important to screen for reading disabilities early through overall reading assessments. It is known that eye-tracking tasks are useful for assessing reading ability. This paper reviews studies of eye-tracking and investigates if children with reading problems can be differentiated through eye-tracking tasks. Methods: Twelve studies which met the inclusion criteria were selected from nine electronic databases (Academic Search Complete, PsycINFO, ERIC, PubMed, CINAHL PLUS, ScienceDirect, RISS, DBpia, Kyobo Scholar). A systematic review of literature was done using meta-analysis (Comprehensive Meta-Analysis version 2). Effect sizes were calculated using Hedges' g. Results: There was a significant difference in the overall mean effect size between the RD group and the control group. The variables that led to group differences were number of fixations, fixation duration, number of saccades, and number of regressions. However, there was no significant group difference in amplitude of saccades. Conclusion: These results suggest that eye-tracking tasks of text processing are useful tools for discriminating the RD group from the control group and might be used for assessing reading disabilities.