For a child with dyslexia, the struggles are not just limited to reading and understanding words or comprehension, but over time their challenges are mistaken for poor academic ability, and they grow up with a diminished sense of self-worth.
This is the experience of thousands of children who struggle with the learning disorder that is notoriously hard to diagnose and tackle in conservative education systems like India’s.
IIT-Madras, an institute that has given India some of its finest technologists and most innovative start-ups, has now geared up to address this very challenge.
The institute’s Language and Cognition lab, set up in November last year, aims to use eye-tracking technology to study how people process language. Anindita Sahoo, a faculty at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences in IIT-Madras, heads the lab along with a youthful team of 10 researchers.
“The underlying idea is the eye-mind hypothesis. Using the device we track pupil movement, fixations and blinking patterns while a person reads to analyse how they process and understand words. The harder the word is to process, the more time they fixate on it,” Sahoo explains.
reading patterns
Building on this premise, the lab’s first project will involve distinguishing between ‘typical’ and ‘atypical’ reading patterns.
The plan is to collaborate with the Madras Dyslexia Association (MDA)’s special school, alongside a team of psychologists and special educators, to study how children with dyslexia read words and stories displayed on screens.
“Our hypothesis is that complex words with multiple morphemes like ‘re-educated’ or ‘deconstruction’ may be harder for atypical readers. This way we can pinpoint difficult words and sentences in a way traditional classroom observation cannot,” she said.
Sahoo added that the goal will be to eventually create a repository of difficult words, phrases, sentence structures and reading patterns associated with dyslexic readers.
She mentions that once these difficult words can be identified, educators can simplify language, substitute difficult words with easier alternatives and redesign study material for dyslexic children.
The research is currently in its early stages and the expectation is to have the first version of the repository ready by the year-end.
While the team is undertaking this project using English language text, Sahoo and her aim to eventually apply it to multiple languages and also work on developing vernacular diagnostic tools for dyslexia, a critical need to improve the diagnosis of the disorder in India.
The lab also has other ambitious long-term plans. Sahoo says that if funding permits, the lab will look to combine the current eye tracking technology with electroencephalogram to further expand the understanding of language processing. The team is also currently working on a standardised testing tool to assess non-native speakers in Indian vernacular languages, akin to English language tests like TOEFL and IELTS.
Published on May 18, 2026