Dyslexia and metaphor comprehension in academic texts

Metaphor engages cognitive processes that are crucial for a comprehensive understanding of text, and “reaching full-fledged metaphor skills represents an important achievement in language development” (Tonini et al., 2022). This study specifically targets university students with dyslexia, a population witnessing a steady increase in enrollment in higher degree programs, as highlighted in the ANVUR report for Italy (2022). There is a growing emphasis on addressing the specific needs of these learners, extending into adulthood. Despite frequent efforts to implement compensatory or alternative measures during exams or educational activities, little attention is paid to their actual proficiency in comprehending academic texts (Pedersen et al., 2016). Academic texts present unique linguistic challenges for individuals with dyslexia, including anaphoric references, logical connectors, and passive sentence structures (Vender, 2017; Cardinaletti, 2018; Simi, 2021). According to a study by Steen (2010), metaphors comprise approximately 18.5% of academic texts. Therefore, if university students with dyslexia struggle to grasp metaphorical meaning, it could further hinder their comprehension of study materials. In the field of education, metaphors have long been recognized as effective tools for facilitating discovery, enabling learners to visualize and recall abstract concepts (Duit, 1991). However, previous research on the use of metaphors as pedagogical aids has not explicitly addressed the need for inclusive teaching practices tailored to students with dyslexia. This research study aims to evaluate the influence of metaphors in academic texts on text comprehension in university students, comparing those with and without dyslexia. Therefore, the primary research question revolves around whether metaphors in academic texts hinder text comprehension or facilitate it. To address this question, participants were presented with either a literal or a metaphorical version of two academic texts specifically created for this study. Subsequently, they completed a comprehension task. In addition to this, participants underwent a standardized assessment of general reading comprehension and cognitive abilities, including reading speed, reading accuracy, and working memory, which are closely linked to the dyslexic profile. A total of 58 university students took part in this study. The dyslexia group consisted of 28 young adults (7 males, 21 females, mean age = 22.75, SD = 3.85) with developmental dyslexia and no associated comorbidities. The control group comprised 30 young adults (9 males, 21 females, mean age = 24.33, SD = 5.1) with no learning difficulties. For the comprehension task, four experimental texts were specifically created for the study to simulate scientific research articles. Two texts were tailored for the metaphorical condition, while the other two served as corresponding literal counterparts, developed subsequent to the metaphorical versions. The novel metaphors utilized in the metaphorical texts were drawn from Mastroianni (2016) and Di Ricco et al. (2016). The chosen topics of the two texts were deliberately interdisciplinary and of a general nature, aimed at minimizing potential effects primarily associated with participants' background knowledge or field of study. In both the metaphorical and literal conditions, consistency in the readability of the texts was maintained concerning factors such as word length, word frequency, syntax complexity, and vocabulary complexity. Each participant received two texts, one in the literal condition and the other in the metaphorical condition. Comprehension was assessed using a multiple- choice task comprising eight questions for each text, with identical questions presented across conditions. All questions were designed to assess participants' overall understanding of the topic. As a concluding task, participants were requested to provide two self-reported measures for each text they read. These measures pertained to the difficulty of the text (“How difficult did you find this text?”) and the level of interest in the text (“How interesting did you find this text?”). The objective of these measures was to examine whether the metaphor condition could influence the perceived difficulty and participants’ appreciation of the text. Our findings suggest that university students with dyslexia encounter difficulties when confronted with metaphors in academic texts. Notably, significant differences between groups were identified solely in the metaphorical condition, where individuals with dyslexia exhibited lower performance compared to their counterparts. While both groups demonstrated comparable performance in the literal condition, the control group, when controlling for reading skills, outperformed participants with dyslexia in the metaphorical condition. The comprehension score in the metaphorical condition exhibited correlations with reading accuracy, working memory, and reading comprehension, while the comprehension score in the literal condition correlated with reading speed and reading comprehension. These findings suggest that both reading accuracy and working memory play roles in the comprehension of metaphors. The involvement of working memory in metaphoric interpretations, especially for novel metaphors, and its specific role in suppressing irrelevant information through the central executive, has already been established in the literature (Mashal, 2013). The association with reading accuracy can be situated along a continuum within the dyslexia-related profile, indicating that higher accuracy may contribute to better preservation of cognitive effort for understanding metaphorical meanings. No significant differences were observed for perceived difficulty, as both groups rated the texts as relatively easy. Interestingly, a notable disparity emerged in the measure of interest in the text. While control participants rated the texts in the literal condition as more interesting, participants with dyslexia rated the texts in the metaphorical condition as such. This result suggests that participants with dyslexia, despite obtaining lower scores in the metaphor comprehension task, demonstrated a higher level of appreciation for texts containing metaphors. These findings indicate that the use of metaphors may not be entirely detrimental for students with dyslexia. As pointed out in Cancer et al. (2016) and Lowe (2003), individuals with dyslexia appear to possess an enhanced ability to identify shared meaning between disparate elements, which may be beneficial in metaphor comprehension. This mode of thinking can foster originality in information processing, representing a valuable skill in the context of academic learning. Further research is necessary to understand the most effective ways to introduce metaphors, the suitable forms (e.g., visual), and how to make them effective tools for addressing various instructional needs.