Enhancing neurodevelopment in children with dyslexia through haptic feedback: The HapticLearn 1.0 framework

Dyslexia, a neurodevelopmental disorder poses significant challenges to children's cognitive and sensory-motor development, often limiting their academic performance and learning outcomes. This study presents HapticLearn 1.0, an innovative haptic-based learning framework and prototype designed to enhance cognitive skills, specifically remembering and understanding among dyslexic children through tactile and kinesthetic feedback. HapticLearn 1.0 enhances traditional education by integrating real-time force feedback, guided interactions, and touch-based engagement, creating a dynamic and immersive multisensory learning experience. The framework was implemented through a Unity-based interactive learning platform linked with the Touch X haptic device, enabling visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic feedback to support multisensory learning. The framework and prototype were evaluated through expert assessments and experimental testing involving 34 dyslexic children evenly divided into control and experimental groups. The experimental group participated in interactive training activities focused on exploring alphabets, digits, shapes, and counting. The results showed substantial cognitive improvements in the experimental group, with a 16 % improvement in remembering, a 27 % improvement in understanding, and an overall 23 % boost in performance, significantly outperforming the control group. Expert evaluations further validated the framework's relevance and effectiveness, exceeding an 80 % satisfaction threshold. These findings highlight the effectiveness of haptic technology in fostering cognitive development and provide empirical evidence supporting its integration into educational tools. HapticLearn 1.0 offers practical implications for educators, technology developers, and multimedia designers, advancing inclusive and effective learning solutions for dyslexic learners.