Electronic Text Displays: Reading Rehabilitation of Low Vision Patients with Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether reading performance, measured in words per minute, improved during an hour of within-session practice. The reading methods were three computer-generated presentations including (1) MNREAD, a modified page format, (2) RSVP, which presents one word at a time, and (3) SCROLL, where text pans from right to left across a screen. Forty-five young readers with normal vision, forty-five elder readers with normal vision, and forty-five readers with low vision due to age-related macular degeneration read by one of these methods. None of the participants had previous experience reading with MNREAD, RSVP of SCROLL. There was little evidence that within-session practice improved performance. Only 10 of 135 participants had modest reading rate gains, and there was no statistical difference between reading method or subject group for this small subset of readers.