What it's REALLY like to read with dyslexia: Simulator reveals how letters and words appear to people with the condition

Web code makes words appear as they do to someone with dyslexia It keeps the first and last letter in each word fixed and jumbles the centre Developer had the idea after a friend told him letters swap out of place

This website lets you experience what it is like to be dyslexicA developer has created a code which shows you what it is like to suffer from dyslexia - and you can try it outPhoto: Alamy

By Helena Horton (The Telegraph)4:23PM GMT 07 Mar 2016

After his friend described to him what it was like to be dyslexic, Victor Widell decided to turn her words into a simulation, so non-dyslexic people could understand what it was like.

Dyslexia, a permanent condition that affects reading, writing, spelling and speaking, may be common but is still not widely understood.

Mr. Widell's dyslexic friend described what it was like to read while all the letters appeared to swap around before she could process what a word said.This greatly increased the time it took for her to read anything.

He created a code to reflect this, which you can try here.

The text without the effect says: "A friend who has dyslexia described to me how she experiences reading. She can read, but it takes a lot of concentration, and the letters seem to 'jump around.'

"I remembered reading about typoglycemia (internet meme – meaning “low word

recognition/understanding). Wouldn't it be possible to do it interactively on a website with JavaScript? Sure it would."Dyslexia is characterized by difficulty with learning to read fluently and with accurate comprehension despite normal intelligence. This includes difficulty with phonological awareness, phonological decoding, processing speed, orthographic coding, auditory short-term memory, language skills/verbal comprehension, and/or rapid naming."There are three proposed cognitive subtypes of dyslexia (auditory, visual and attentional), although individual cases of dyslexia are better explained by specific

underlying neuropsychological deficits and co-occurring learning disabilities (e.g. attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, math disability, etc.).

"Although it is considered to be a receptive language-based learning disability in the research literature, dyslexia also affects one's expressive language skills. Researchers at MIT found that people with dyslexia exhibited impaired voice-recognition abilities."

His test is interesting, but not perfect, as there are many types of dyslexia.Not everyone who is diagnosed with the condition   experiences it in this way.However, seeing non-existent movement in words and seeing letters like "d", "b", "p", "q" rotated is common among people with dyslexia.

Commenters on the website said it was consistent with how they experienced reading a lot of the time.

Others said it wasn't as difficult, or was slightly different. One dyslexic commenter said he experienced vertical jumbling where "words and letters swap into preceding and following lines." Another said: "Leaving the first and last letter of a word stable makes it too easy. Being dyslexic is hard. Really hard".

Source: NHS Choices 25/04/18