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Open Dyslexic - Dyslexia Fonts

dyslexicfonts.com

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Re: Open Dyslexic - Dyslexia Fonts

#31

Post by evincarofautumn »

jdietrich wrote: post #27

There are several comments already about the scientific validity of this font, but the issue is much deeper. "Dyslexia" cannot be meaningfully distinguished from "poor reading skills" in any measurable way. There is no evidence for the efficacy of any intervention that is uniquely suited to dyslexia; All effective interventions are equally effective in improving the reading skills of non-dyslexic individuals. There i…

I agree that it’s disingenuous to give a specific-sounding label to a somewhat ill-defined thing, but you must consider the perspective of a dyslexic person. I have a close friend, intelligent and hardworking, an excellent speaker—who simply finds it difficult to read and to express himself in writing, or to learn foreign languages. Whether he can meaningfully be called “dyslexic” is of no import. Having that label to attach to his difficulties when he was younger let him more easily find resources to improve his written language skills. It doesn’t matter if a term is historically or etymologically inaccurate; what matters is the actual usage.

Re: Open Dyslexic - Dyslexia Fonts

#32

Post by jvandenbroeck »

jdietrich wrote: post #27

There are several comments already about the scientific validity of this font, but the issue is much deeper. "Dyslexia" cannot be meaningfully distinguished from "poor reading skills" in any measurable way. There is no evidence for the efficacy of any intervention that is uniquely suited to dyslexia; All effective interventions are equally effective in improving the reading skills of non-dyslexic individuals. There i…

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck than it probably is a duck.

"Poor reading skills" wouldn't cover the thing that's different in your brain if you've dyslexia. I can't find the stats anymore, but I thought around 40% of the wealth is owned by dyslexic people. Look at a list of entrepreneurs with dyslexia http://www.incomediary.com/top-30-dyslexic-entrepreneurs or how many famous people (actors, writers,.. ) are dyslextic.

All these people have something in common and it's not "just" poor reading skills;) there is definitely something more going on.

Re: Open Dyslexic - Dyslexia Fonts

#33

Post by pessimism »

antijingoist wrote: post #30
pessimism wrote: post #29

As someone working on a free open-source project that is almost as text-intensive as it can get, I was really happy to see a dyslexia font/typeface that was truly free, when Marco Arment announced it would be included in Instapaper. The gist of the research is to create typefaces whose characters, even flipped and rotated, cannot be confused at all. I've seen others like http://redd.it/j277w that, as interesting as t…

Thanks for the kind words. :) Oddly enough, it shows up less bold on a non-windows machine. Eulexia is an SIL-OFL one that is thinner too. But I haven't worked on the windows font smoothing with that one yet. :-/

Thanks for the typeface. I really appreciate it.

If you want an example of it in action, you can go to a deployed example of my app at http://pygm.us/kzXSwSRV with the log-in admin//password. I haven't gotten around to letting people change their settings, but you can use the button in the sidebar to see it in effect. If you apply the CSS in one of the threads, you may see why I find the font weight to be a bit on the heavy side. But to each their own and all.

Of course, now that Instapaper supports the typeface, you should check it out in it as well, if you have an iOS device.

Thanks again! :)

Re: Open Dyslexic - Dyslexia Fonts

#35

Post by antijingoist »

pessimism wrote: post #33
antijingoist wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the kind words. :) Oddly enough, it shows up less bold on a non-windows machine. Eulexia is an SIL-OFL one that is thinner too. But I haven't worked on the windows font smoothing with that one yet. :-/

Thanks for the typeface. I really appreciate it. If you want an example of it in action, you can go to a deployed example of my app at http://pygm.us/kzXSwSRV with the log-in admin//password . I haven't gotten around to letting people change their settings, but you can use the button in the sidebar to see it in effect. If you apply the CSS in one of the threads, you may see why I find the font weight to be a bit on t…

Regular user of Instapaper. :) As soon as I got an email about it, I upgraded Instapaper to check it out. Made my day. :D

Re: Open Dyslexic - Dyslexia Fonts

#36

Post by drivebyacct2 »

jdietrich wrote: post #27

There are several comments already about the scientific validity of this font, but the issue is much deeper. "Dyslexia" cannot be meaningfully distinguished from "poor reading skills" in any measurable way. There is no evidence for the efficacy of any intervention that is uniquely suited to dyslexia; All effective interventions are equally effective in improving the reading skills of non-dyslexic individuals. There i…

I can't offer science but I will offer that my family has had a history of dyslexia on the side of my family that my brother greatly seems to take after. He has used colored overlays, lenses and contacts and it's noticeable for him if he has to go without. He's been wearing them for probably 8 years now, maybe.

Re: Open Dyslexic - Dyslexia Fonts

#37

Post by jdietrich »

evincarofautumn wrote: post #31
jdietrich wrote: post #27

There are several comments already about the scientific validity of this font, but the issue is much deeper. "Dyslexia" cannot be meaningfully distinguished from "poor reading skills" in any measurable way. There is no evidence for the efficacy of any intervention that is uniquely suited to dyslexia; All effective interventions are equally effective in improving the reading skills of non-dyslexic individuals. There i…

I agree that it’s disingenuous to give a specific-sounding label to a somewhat ill-defined thing, but you must consider the perspective of a dyslexic person. I have a close friend, intelligent and hardworking, an excellent speaker—who simply finds it difficult to read and to express himself in writing, or to learn foreign languages. Whether he can meaningfully be called “dyslexic” is of no import. Having that label t…

I'll be blunt about this - the term dyslexia exists to absolve incompetent teachers and schools of responsibility. All the available evidence points to the fact that dyslexics have simply been incompetently taught and never gained a coherent sense of how language works. By labelling the student as dyslexic we perpetuate the lie that the reading difficulty has come from within the individual, rather than from the failings of the adults around them.

It is very likely that your friend is absolutely no different from anyone else, but for the fact that they had a poor early experience of reading. A failed education system has found it more convenient to convince your friend that they have a neurological disorder, rather than admit to their culpability. Your friend should not have needed any clinical diagnosis to access proper teaching; We should be thoroughly ashamed of the continuing systematic failures that create such a situation.

Re: Open Dyslexic - Dyslexia Fonts

#38

Post by white_bread »

jdietrich wrote: post #37
evincarofautumn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it’s disingenuous to give a specific-sounding label to a somewhat ill-defined thing, but you must consider the perspective of a dyslexic person. I have a close friend, intelligent and hardworking, an excellent speaker—who simply finds it difficult to read and to express himself in writing, or to learn foreign languages. Whether he can meaningfully be called “dyslexic” is of no import. Having that label t…

I'll be blunt about this - the term dyslexia exists to absolve incompetent teachers and schools of responsibility. All the available evidence points to the fact that dyslexics have simply been incompetently taught and never gained a coherent sense of how language works. By labelling the student as dyslexic we perpetuate the lie that the reading difficulty has come from within the individual, rather than from the fail…

I get the point you're making but reading this is bumming me out. Dyslexia is by far the most common learning disability. It's estimated that 5 to 10 percent of people are affected. By saying that the teachers are incompetent is dismissive but ultimately minimizes the struggles of the people who have to figure out how to deal with this very real learning difference.

Re: Open Dyslexic - Dyslexia Fonts

#39

Post by aufreak3 »

nostromo wrote: post #16

I'm dyslexic and I love this idea! However this font is much harder to read. Here are my trouble letters in this font: http://i.imgur.com/ilkUV.png Note that there is no indication what letters these are other than by direction (which is really hard for many dyslexics). Compare this to a regular font: http://i.imgur.com/mbi54.png Note that there are hints in the serifs that distinguish direction. By reversing the reg…

I'm not dyslexic, but I still checked out the fonts expecting them to bump up readability even for me.

Usually, if some product is made to be usable by folks who have difficulty with something, it turns out to work better for folks who don't have that problem (kitchen implements come to mind).

That didn't turn out to be true in this case. I went "ouch!" when I looked at the page. Do you find this font giving you an overall bump in readability over the standard fonts?

Re: Open Dyslexic - Dyslexia Fonts

#40

Post by drseide »

I think there is no single font that will help "dyslexics" because many students in our practice have told us different preferences in the font sizes, shapes / serifs, colors, and character spacing re: readability.

As a group, there are some scientific studies which show the need for larger font and increased character spacing, among other issues. The option to customize will help some people though.

In our dyslexia practice, many kids tell us that they prefer Comic Sans with a larger font...the extra shaping of letters helps distinguish mirror letters like b and d.

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