  The paper presents the design of an assistive reading tool that integrates
read-aloud technology with eye-tracking to regulate the speed of reading and
support struggling readers in following the text while listening to it. The
paper describes the design rationale of this approach, following the theory of
auditory-visual integration, in terms of an automatic self-adaptable technique
based on the reader's gaze that provides an individualized interaction
experience. This tool has been assessed in a controlled experiment with 20
children (aged 8-10 years) with a diagnosis of dyslexia and a control group of
20 children with typical reading abilities. The results show that children with
reading difficulties improved their comprehension scores by 24% measured on a
standardized instrument for the assessment of reading comprehension, and that
children with more inaccurate reading (N=9) tended to benefit more. The
findings are discussed in terms of a better integration between audio and
visual text information, paving the way to improve standard read-aloud
technology with gaze-contingency and self-adaptable techniques to personalize
the reading experience.
