ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Feature-Efficient and Interpretable Dyslexia Detection via Soft Voting Ensemble Learning
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1
Department of Information and Computer Science, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia
2
Department of Computer Engineering, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia
Submission date: 2026-03-11
Final revision date: 2026-05-13
Acceptance date: 2026-08-22
Publication date: 2026-09-27
Corresponding author
Shujaat Khan
Department of Computer Engineering, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
Journal of Undergraduate Research International 2026;2(3A):70-76
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ABSTRACT
Early dyslexia prediction is difficult because of its varied behavioral signals and the need for timely, reliable screening in educational
settings. This study proposes a soft-voting ensemble framework that integrates multiple boosting classifiers (AdaBoost, Gradient
Boosting, XGBoost, and CatBoost) to improve predictive performance while maintaining interpretability. The model is evaluated
using stratified 10-fold cross-validation on a publicly available dataset derived from gamified cognitive assessments, with minimum
Redundancy Maximum Relevance feature selection and SHapley Additive exPlanations analysis used to enhance transparency.
Experimental results reveal that the ensemble outperforms individual models and recent methods, achieving 91.6% accuracy, 90.7%
precision, 91.6% recall, and a 90.9% F1-score using 165 selected features with class weighting, thereby supporting its practicality for
explainable early dyslexia screening.