A comparison of reading and listening performance: computer-controlled speech and printed text presentations

Print-handicapped people enrolled at any level of the education system are expected to acquire the same information as their peers who are readers of printed text. Research which compares performance rates of reading print with auding of materials read onto tape generally reports substantially higher performance by readers of print. The different strategies employed by readers and listeners are said to be responsible for the variation in performance.
This article describes the development of one method and the associated instrumentation which permits a more exact comparison of reading and listening performance. It ensures that important factors such as word rate, timing, inter-word pauses, and overall presentation duration are identical for visual or audio presentations. The inclusion of these factors enables a more direct comparison of reading performance with listening performance at a range of presentation speeds, including accelerated presentations from time-compressed tapes. An investigation which employed this technique for comparing reading and listening performance has provided new findings on how readers and listeners operate. This should provide a more complete understanding of the benefits and limitations of accelerated reading and listening techniques in the educational context.