Practical software to counter dyslexia

A recent study has shown that it would be possible to predict reading problems and dyslexia in children using a brain scanner. Here is a little information on ICT tools that can reduce the burden of students with this disorder.

"It would be possible to predict reading and dyslexia problems in children using a brain scanner," reveals a study highlighted in the scientific journal Psychological Science. Indeed, researchers at the University of California at San Francisco looked at the brain imaging of 38 kindergarten students. As indicated on the site Canoe, they then followed the evolution of the white matter of the brain of these children until the 3rd year. They found notable differences among children who had difficulty reading. Remember that white matter is directly linked to perception, thought and learning.

Among the reading disorders, there is in particular dyslexia, which causes writing problems in those who suffer from them and, ultimately, makes their academic progress difficult. Fortunately, different software, such as Medialexy, Kurzweil, WordQ and others, alleviate the burden of dyslexic students thanks to their special features.

These technological aids allow, among other things, to young people, from elementary school onwards, to overcome their lack of fluency and precision in reading. Indeed, since they focus on the visual and auditory aspects, the words of a text are both highlighted and dictated at a rhythm and a rate that the user can determine himself.

Thanks to the visual component, which reinforces and structures the way of writing the words read, the student becomes more likely to write them correctly. The auditory aspect puts the emphasis on the phonetics of the words read, thus making it possible to pronounce properly, or to detect obvious errors when re-reading a composition. Moreover, the software offers the possibility of varying the languages (English or French) as well as selecting the type of accent (international French, Canadian, etc.).

These programs also provide people with dyslexia with writing tools, such as a dysorthographic checker, so that students can find the correct spelling of a badly written word thanks to its phonetics. This feature is called word prediction.

In addition, another interesting aspect is undoubtedly the impressive quantity of texts of all kinds available in the databases of the software, or their capacity to adapt to any other digitized text.

These software are therefore invaluable tools for people suffering from dyslexia and undoubtedly make it possible to improve reading comprehension, to reinforce faulty manual writing or to obtain better results during various tests.

You can find out more about the various help functions and software on the website of the National Service STORY in special education, or by consulting this very clear table educational services of the CS des Découvreurs.