Abstract
Purpose :
To compare percentage of visual on-task time during storybook reading, as measured by eye tracking, to performance on a test of preschool early literacy testing.
Methods :
A subset of children participating in the Vision In Preschoolers – Hyperopia In Preschoolers study participated in an ancillary study of eye movement testing. All children were given a comprehensive eye exam to rule out amblyopia, strabismus, and ocular health concerns. Percentage of visual on-task time during storybook reading was measured by head-mounted, scene-viewing eye trackers, the ASL Eye Track 5000 and/or ISCAN ETL 100 scene-camera system. Each child’s eye movements were measured while books were read to the child at an automated rate. Recordings were processed using MPEG Streamclip and DVDVideoSoft software and analyzed for presence, location, and length of eye fixations. Each fixation was determined to be “on task” (if the child was looking at text or a picture in the story) or “off task." Preschool early literacy was assessed using the Test of Preschool Early Literacy (TOPEL; 3 subtests: print knowledge, definitional vocabulary, and phonological awareness) by an examiner who was masked to the eye exam and eye tracking results. Spearman correlations were used to evaluate the relationship between visual, on-task time and early literacy, adjusting for age, race, and parent education.
Results :
Twenty-seven subjects completed both the eye tracking and TOPEL testing (9 female; mean age (SD) = 60.2 (5.9) months). Moderate associations were found between visual on-task time and the overall TOPEL score (0.48, p=0.01) and all three subtests: print knowledge (0.41, p=0.04), definitional vocabulary (0.51, p=0.007), and phonological awareness (0.40, p=0.04).
Conclusions :
Early literacy of 4- and 5-year-old children is moderately correlated to visual on-task time during storybook reading.
Acknowledgements: Supported by NIH/NEI R01EY021141.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.