But the new fonts—and the odd assortment of paraphernalia that came before them—assume that dyslexia is a visual problem rooted in imprecise letter recognition. That’s a myth, explains Joanne Pierson, a speech-language pathologist at the University of Michigan. “Contrary to popular belief, the core problem in dyslexia is not reversing letters (although it can be an indicator),” she writes. The difficulty lies in identifying the discrete units of sound that make up words and “matching those individual sounds to the letters and combinations of letters in order to read and spell.”
In other words, dyslexia is a language-based processing difference, not a vision problem, despite the popular and enduring misconceptions.
Researchers put the font to the test, comparing it with two other popular fonts designed for legibility—Arial and Times New Roman—and discovered that the purportedly dyslexia-friendly font actually reduced reading speed and accuracy. In addition, none of the students preferred to read material in OpenDyslexic, a surprising rebuke for a font specifically designed for the task.
The idea of making fonts more legible is good, but it doesn’t help dyslexia specifically.
Dyslexic fonts don’t help dyslexia, and the internet’s idea of how dyslexia works is wrong.
https://dyslexiaassociation.org.au/do-dyslexia-fonts-work/
The idea of making fonts more legible is good, but it doesn’t help dyslexia specifically.