Eye Movements and Reading Comprehension in Neurodivergent Readers: A Study on Children with Formal ADHD Diagnosis

Cengiz Acarturk, ESMEHAN ÖZER, Belgin Üstün Güllü, Halime Betül Kırmızı, Kardelen Çiftci

Keywords: Eye movements, ADHD, WISC-4

Abstract:

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a condition frequently associated with reading difficulties, which can significantly impact academic achievement and daily functioning. Its prevalence has been reported as 7.6% in children and 5.6% in adolescents (Salari et al., 2023), see (Papadopoulos et al., 2026) for a recent review of eye tracking in reading research. As a neurodevelopmental disorder, ADHD characterized by symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity (APA, 2013). The available research has shown that individual readers, diagnosed with ADHD, also exhibit challenges in reading comprehension. Eye-tracking methodology has played a methodological role in the study of these challenges, by providing data that facilitate the investigation of oculomotor processes underlying reading.

This study presents findings from ongoing research in Turkish, particularly focusing on eye-movement metrics, such as fixation durations, saccadic amplitudes, and regression rates, commonly conceived as common indicators of attention and executive function deficits that may occur during reading. The eye-tracking data have been analyzed in relation to a set of cognitive tests, such as WISC-IV Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–Fourth Edition (Wechsler, 2003) and behavioral games designed for diagnosing verbal and visual working memory in primary school children (Van de Weijer-Bergsma et al., 2015, 2016). We aim to expand the research on resource-rich languages, such as English, by providing data from Turkish, a language characterized by regular and consistent grapheme-to-phoneme mappings. We also present data obtained from standardized cognitive tests alongside eye-tracking data, which allows researchers to control for further metrics, and to study the correlates between visual attention and executive functioning through the analysis of eye-movement data and the data obtained from cognitive tests. The current findings, obtained from 53 participants of 9-10 years of age (M = 9.37, SD = 0.44), reveal significant differences in eye-movement patterns in reading, between the formally-diagnosed ADHD participants and their typically developing peers.

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Submission Type: Oral presentation, Poster presentation

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Submission Number: 19