Towards Language Independent Detection of Dyslexia with a Web-based Game

Abstract

Detecting dyslexia is important because early intervention is key to avoid the negative effects of dyslexia such as school failure. Most of the current approaches to detect dyslexia require expensive personnel (i.e. psychologists) or special hardware (i.e. eye trackers or MRI machines). Also, most of the methods can only be used when children are learning how to read but not before, necessarily delaying needed early intervention. In this work, we present a study with 178 participants speaking different languages (Spanish, German, English, and Catalan) with and without dyslexia using a web-based game built with musical and visual elements that are language independent. The study reveals eighth game measures with significant differences for Spanish children with and without dyslexia, which could be used in future work as a basis for language independent detection. A web-based application like this could have a major impact on children all over the world by easily screening them and suggest the help they need.