Eye Movements of Persons with Aphasia During Connected-Text Reading.
Kimberly G Smith, Sarah C McWilliams, Joseph Schmidt
PMID 40857541WHAT IT FOUND
During text reading, people with aphasia looked back for longer and stopped more often than controls, but their first pass through words took less time.
Aphasia subtypes did not differ.
Key findings
01Participants with aphasia had shorter gaze duration, longer regression duration, and more fixations than control participants, while first fixation duration and skipping rate did not differ.
02Eye movement measures did not differ among the anomic, Broca's, and conduction/Wernicke's aphasia groups.
03Language processing severity was associated with gaze duration, but reading comprehension was not associated with the eye movement measures.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Each aphasia subtype group had only 8 participants, which may have been too small to detect subtype differences. The study used two versions of the reading protocol during data collection, although the authors report no significant differences in mean fixation duration or mean saccade amplitude before and after the change. The texts were at approximately an 8th grade level and may have been too easy for some participants. This may reduce what the eye movements reveal about reading impairment. Eye movement differences may reflect oculomotor effects of stroke, not only language processing.
Declared interests
The authors report no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the shorter first-pass time as evidence of easier reading. The aphasia group also stopped more often and looked back for longer, and the study did not show that eye movements identify aphasia subtype or reading comprehension.