Concussions are a common health concern among universities around the world, however little was known about how college athletes with concussions (CAC) and neurotypical college students (NCS) process written text when reading multi-sentence narratives. In this study, we examined the forward and regressive eye fixation patterns of college athletes following acute concussion (less than 2 weeks post-onset) and neurotypical college students when reading short narratives via eye tracking technology. This eye-tracking technology allowed us to see fixation points throughout the readings and observe differences when comparing them to neurotypical college students. Our secondary aim of this study was to explore processing time and rereading patterns of these participant groups. Findings from the preliminary data analysis suggests that CAC exhibit greater forward and regressive eye fixation patterns, more rereads, and longer processing times than gender, age, and education matched NCS. These results could be due to difficulty decoding words, difficulty connecting information with information that was previously read, difficulty with semantic or syntactic processing, etc., which could be possible impairments of those diagnosed with acute concussions. The potential implications of these findings on student athletes with concussions is to provide further direction into how universities may be able to assist and accommodate students who are experiencing difficulties academically as a result of their concussion. With proper accommodations, we can prevent these student athletes from suffering academically. In the field of Speech Pathology, people with concussions are a population that one may encounter as clients, and being exposed to students with mTBI and learning how to use eye-tracking technology will definitely be a beneficial learning experience that will help in my future career.
Author(s): Emily Fowler, Hannah Bellville, Kelly Knollman-Porter
Advisor(s): Kelly Knollman-Porter, Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology
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