Dyslexia is becoming more common than before, and now 1% of the total population suffers from dyslexia. The most commonly reported dyslexia outcomes are illiteracy and social struggles. Remember, dyslexia cannot be cured and the only solution is to manage the condition.
Assistive technology is referred to as an ideal solution to improve the quality of life of dyslexic patients. With its use, they can lead a more normal life and can achieve impossible targets. This blog discusses assistive technology for dyslexia and dysgraphia. Let’s learn which types of tools are used and how they help dyslexic and dysgraphia patients.
Why are children under the high impact of dyslexia and dysgraphia? There are so many causes to mention. However, the affected patients cannot differentiate their disorders, whether they are dyslexic or dysgraphia patients. Both conditions are not the same, even though people think so. It’s understandable that people could be confused given how similar the names sound. You should keep in mind, nevertheless, that dyslexia and dysgraphia are two different conditions.
For example, the reading disorder is a dyslexia-related condition, while writing issues are referred to as dysgraphia conditions. If the children are suffering from dysgraphia, the possible disorder will be seen in handwriting. Moreover, they may find it difficult to arrange ideas into words on paper. Such children can also fail to differentiate between capital and small alphabets.
The difficulty with dyslexia typically lies in spelling and decoding words when reading. As both disorders are language complications, so they may sound alike. When a student has one of these diseases, their work is below their level of proficiency. Compared to their classmates’ work, theirs can be chaotic and challenging to read.
What is assistive technology (AT)?
Assistive technology is not a new terminology to disabled individuals, but it may be to you – a healthy person. By assistive, you recognize that ‘something helpful’. Technology is simply a scientific approach. So, using technology, assistive devices, or tools are introduced for dyslexic and dysgraphia patients. When interacting with them, you must understand that learning issues are not a sign of low IQ. It frequently exhibits unusual brainwriting. Assistive technology allows disadvantaged children to learn at grade level while they find it difficult to write, read and spell.
People’s misguided views of technology’s potential to treat the disease are one of the major obstacles to the adoption of assistive technology devices in classrooms. Parents and instructors claim that only the instructors can manage the learning issues of a child. While many teachers assert that technology integration in the education system is cheating. While some others consider it a kind of cheating.
Learning challenges should be managed just like any other impairment. Teachers and parents should be aware that the children do not wish they had this illness. Adding assistive technology into impacted people’s daily lives is the best method to assist them. The action fosters the self-confidence of children with disabilities.
Assistive technology for dyslexia and dysgraphia
Many technology firms have introduced AT products in the market. Particularly, these include learning aids for children with reading, writing, and spelling disabilities. Let’s explore assistive technology for dyslexia and dysgraphia with respect to individual disabilities.
- Reading disorders and related assistive technology
Students with dyslexia present with reading disorders – they read too slowly. Giving such a child additional opportunities to read is one of the best things you can do to help them become better readers. But have you heard of ‘audiobooks’ technology for people struggling with reading?
In other words, it is referred to as ‘ear reading’, which implies, listening to a book. Subjects like science should be taught using audiobooks as it frequently contains terminologies that are too tough for dyslexic patients.
The benefits of hearing a book read aloud to a dyslexic learner are enormous. It enables kids to recognize how to pronounce words and where to stop when reading sentences. Hence, you should include audiobooks in your child’s daily routine if they have dyslexia.
Earlier and now, blind students frequently use text-to-speech applications. Here is to note that these applications are also useful for students with reading difficulties. It simply converts online text into speech – works on the same principle as audiobooks. A text-to-speech application is a helpful addition to the dyslexic students’ routine. Dyslexic students may find using these applications a little complex, so a teacher must be there to guide them. Chrome extensions are also handy for such activities. But, again, it may be difficult to add extensions.
- Writing Disorders and related assistive technology
A significant population is affected by dysgraphia and it implies that they are facing issues with writing. Again, technology helps these people as well by offering assistive tools. One of them is speech-to-text applications which work reciprocally to text-to-speech apps.
Dysgraphia makes it difficult for students to express their ideas in written form. If they do, their work is typically sloppy. Additionally, they struggle with capitalization and punctuation. Luckily, they can use speech-to-text applications to address the aforementioned issue. The affected person can use the tools to narrate his or her thoughts, and the software will turn them into writing.
You may utilize these technologies with popular browsers like Google. Additionally, these features are typically offered for free on platforms like Microsoft One Note. The TalkTyper app is another option that can be very beneficial to any child who struggles with writing. It is a dictation device that records and types every word the child says into the computer.
The words are typically entered into a word processor where they can later be edited with a keyboard. When it concerns finishing tasks, this application is really helpful because it enables the students to type their work fast and also submit it to their lecturers.
- Difficulties with spelling and related assistive technology
One of the most significant factors frequently influencing people with language-based disorders is spelling. You can count on standard tests to track a child’s spelling issues. Although, the majority of these solutions rarely solve the spelling issues that dyslexic individuals frequently experience.
The fact that outdated spell-checkers don’t identify all errors, such as when a person uses a homonym, makes them potentially ineffective for assisting dyslexic children. When it comes to such situations, Page is one assistive device you can trust because it contextually examines spelling and grammar. Using this device, dyslexic individuals can quickly think of word choices that fit the context.
Take Away!
Assistive technology for dyslexia and dysgraphia can easily be integrated into the education systems. Moreover, if technology tools for dyslexic students are introduced with proper guidance, success rates are high.