Reading speed of patients with infantile nystagmus for text in different orientations

Two case studies in the literature report on patients with infantile nystagmus (IN) who preferred to read text that is oriented vertically rather than horizontally. The current study systematically evaluated the effect of text orientation (-60 to +90 deg with respect to horizontal) on reading speed in nine individuals with IN associated with albinism at Hadassah Academic College (HAC), seven individuals with IN at the University of Houston (UH), and a total of 17 normal control observers. Observers at HAC read 40-character passages of Hebrew text from standardized 2nd grade level reading material and observers at UH read MNRead acuity chart sentences. Letter size was two to six lines larger than each observer's measured visual acuity. In both individuals with IN and normal observers reading speed was fastest for horizontally oriented text and decreased for other orientations. However, reading speed decreased significantly more for non-horizontally orientated text in the observers with IN, compared to controls. In general, it is recommended that to achieve best reading performance patients with IN read horizontally oriented text.