People with dyslexia often swap, rotate, and flip letters without noticing.

Fake news claim: A message popular on social media claim that The Dyslexie font can be highly helpful to people suffering from dyslexia.

Examples of viral posts in circulation on Social Media like WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.

Fun fact of the day! There’s a font designed specifically for dyslexic people to read easier.

You can install on your tablets, laptops and browers etc, so not only can you change things like documents into it, you can change websites into that font as well!

The Dyslexie font

Graphic designer Christian Boer has dyslexia himself and designed the font to improve his reading life. People with dyslexia often swap, rotate, and flip letters without noticing. The problem is that some letters are too similar to each other. Dyslexie font is designed so that every letter is unique in its own form. This counters the rotation, flipping and reversal of the letters. Sometimes they have a “crowding effect” (the apparent fusion of letters) because they are too close to each other. In addition, the font has extra distance between the letters (kerning) and between words (spaces). Dyslexic people may also overlook the beginning of a sentence and read two sentences as one. Therefore, the capital letters are bolder so the reader will easily identify the beginning of a new sentence. 

Facts Check Verdict: Mixed

News Verification: Dyslexia is a problem with the acquisition of reading decoding and/or spelling.

There is no evidence to support this claim that Dyslexie fonts aids reading.

The typeface was designed by Dutch graphic designer Christian Boer in 2008 while he was majoring in graphic design at the University of Twente. He had himself struggled with dyslexia for much of his life.

Dyslexie uses a heavier line thickness to emphasize the bottom of most characters. This is to try to 'anchor' the letters since some people with dyslexia may see letters either moving or in three dimensions. Since dyslexics tend to get b, d, p, and q mixed up, it also emphasizes a slight slant downwards on the curvature of the letters. Letters such as c or e may gape slightly more, or slump slightly in one direction. Also, in letters such as n or h, the font slightly elongates or diminishes the stem on the letters. So the letter h would have a longer line, and n would have a lower line. In addition, the font also thickens or bolds capital letters and punctuations, so that it is easier to identify when a sentence starts or ends.

Research does not suggest that the font is beneficial in aiding reading. Neither children with or without dyslexia read faster or more accurately with the font.

No research to date has found a statistically significant beneficial effect on reading for dyslexics from any font specifically designed for dyslexia.

As per springer, Dyslexie font does not benefit reading in children with or without dyslexia. In two experiments, the claim was tested that the font “Dyslexie”, specifically designed for people with dyslexia, eases reading performance of children with (and without) dyslexia. Three questions were investigated. (1) Does the Dyslexie font lead to faster and/or more accurate reading? (2) Do children have a preference for the Dyslexie font? And, (3) is font preference related to reading performance? In Experiment 1, children with dyslexia (n = 170) did not read text written in Dyslexie font faster or more accurately than in Arial font. The majority preferred reading in Arial and preference was not related to reading performance. In Experiment 2, children with (n = 102) and without dyslexia (n = 45) read word lists in three different font types (Dyslexie, Arial, Times New Roman). Words written in Dyslexie font were not read faster or more accurately. Moreover, participants showed a preference for the fonts Arial and Times New Roman rather than Dyslexie, and again, preference was not related to reading performance. These experiments clearly justify the conclusion that the Dyslexie font neither benefits nor impedes the reading process of children with and without dyslexia.

Apart from this there are other researches that are in support of Dyslexie claiming it has positive effects on children’s.

So we keep it in mixed category, as we don’t have much information to support the claim.

About The Author

Sophia Forster is an Indian fact-checker and news writer, writing news for Ayupp since 2014.

You Might Be Interested In

Latest On Ayupp.com