Assistive Technology for Students with Dyslexia

   Dyslexia is listed under Learning Disabilities in the categories of disabilities of IDEA. This problem often goes undetected in the early years, because children develop academically at different ages.  Dyslexia is caused by the brain's inability to take the images that are seen and heard and turn them into an understandable language.  The severity of dyslexia can range from mild to severe.  During testing of people with severe dyslexia, it was seen that the side of the brain that is mostly used for reading was very inactive, while the opposite side was working extremely hard.   Having dyslexia as a student, causes a lot of learning struggles.  These children struggle to learn to read because they do not see the written language as the average person does.  As they do begin to learn, their reading fluency is very slow because they have to read word by word instead of seeing several words at a time. They struggle with comprehension because they lose the meaning since they have to stop and decode so many words.  These children also struggle with spelling.  They cannot close their eyes and picture a word like other children.  Since math is a form of reading and processing to solve the problem, children with this disability often struggle in this subject as well.  Unfortunately, these students will struggle with more subjects as they get older and have to do more independent reading in subjects such as science and history.   

   One assistive technology for children with dyslexia is Bookshare which is the world's largest online library. https://www.bookshare.org/_/home/learnMore This online library is free and provides about 90,000 digital books, textbooks and books recommended by teachers for any student in the U.S. who qualifies.  The qualifying students are given the password that their school uses in order to access the books.  The students can complete reading assignments in a timely manner when using these books.  

   There are electronic pens that can help students with dyslexia. http://dyslexiahelp.umich.edu/tools/software-assistive-technology   One is called Livescribe SmartPen.  Often these students have a difficult time keeping up with taking notes during a class lecture.  This pen will record the lecture at the same time the student is using it to write notes.  If the students misses something, the pen can be tapped on the paper and they can hear what was missed.  The notes taken using this pen are transferred wirelessly to a device the student has set up to receive them such as a computer or Ipad.  There is also ReadingPen 2  that can help the struggling reader.  The pen can scan a text and then it can be enlarged to make it easier to read.  The pen can read the text aloud and break a word into syllables so the reader can sound it out.  It also comes with vocabulary games and a thesaurus.

   So much progress has been made to help students with dyslexia.  It was exciting to me to see all of the different devices that can help these children.  They will continue to develop  ATs that will eventually become more affordable and available in each school.  There will be more items like the SmartPen that will greatly benefit these students.  There will be apps that can be downloaded to a phone or Ipad that will help with decoding words and comprehension.   

References:

http://www.ncld.org/students-disabilities/assistive-technology-education/apps-students-ld-dyslexia-reading-difficulties

http://www.idaga.org/Downloads/AssistiveTechnologyForDyslexicStudents.pdf

http://www.medicinenet.com/dyslexia/page2.htm#what_causes_dyslexia_what_are_the_different_types_of_dyslexia

http://dyslexiahelp.umich.edu/tools/software-assistive-technology