What should parents and teachers consider when trying to use technology to help a dyslexic pupil to learn in a way that helps them? Specialist ICT SEND Consultant Myles Pilling shares his thoughts.

I suppose the title should have been “Dyslexia and Assistive Technology” but the outcome would be the same. Looking at ways to use Assistive Technology to help the dyslexic learner overcome barriers to their learning and their recording.

A plethora of assistive technology tools and apps are out there and the purpose of this article is to point to things that would help. But before we do that it would be good to explain how Assistive Technology should be used. In my working life I have never met two dyslexic pupils who have been the same. Each has different ways of working with their dyslexia advantage. That shows the common difficulties of spelling, poor handwriting in some cases, organisational difficulties as well as dyscalculia - the maths blindness disability. It can be all or some of that. Depends on how much is assessed. That brings us neatly to a paragraph on Assessment for AT.

A pragmatic approach could be done which looks at finding ways to test spelling. Or you could take advantage of an innovative use of an eye gaze system to detect speed of reading. It’s called Lexplore and can identify in 5 minutes a problem. Now that shouldn’t be confused with a diagnosis for dyslexia. It is a visual problem identification tool. That could be eye-sight and/or cognitive impairment. Testing spelling can be commonly mis-spelt words and taking into consideration the age and concentration levels of the pupil experience will develop that tells you whether a pupil has a problem or not. Of course, it’s the “nearly dyslexic” if that was a thing that are the most difficult to detect and arbitrary scores don’t tell the whole story. Parent view has to be considered then in order to recognise a problem. As well as teacher views and then a discussion ensues with the pupil being assessed. In conducting assessment it is crucial to have the pupil onboard with the assessment so that together we can find the right strategy to meet the need. In practise the solutions can be varied and simple to operate ( note I didn’t say implement - that is quite another thing which we will deal with later in this article. Let’s talk tech now!

So how do you choose? So many products . So many different ways to use the technology. A guiding principle is choose what works for your child/pupil/student. Also, what they themselves want to use. Let them be your guide and allow them to choose. But from what? The following areas are where Assistive Technology can make an impact

Recording - getting ideas down.

This could be by voice, typing text , and drawing. Built into operating systems really work. iPads have Notes which have powerful features such as drawing and scanning from a photograph. It comes free with the iPad. Google Docs have voice typing to allow input as well as predictive text. Microsoft Word in the latest versions have Dictate on the home tab and has the Immersive Reader for checking and hearing back what has been written. With the exception of Microsoft Word the other apps are free to the device they are on. Android have features built-in using accessibility such as the Google Keyboard with voice input and can be used with any app you choose. Specific Apps for Wiindows would be AppWriter by Wizzkids which provides a suite of tools such as word prediction across any application, spell checker and also a useful feature a PDF writer. This could be used on Worksheets, Past Exam papers and other PDF documents. Lightkey is a new app that provides in-line word prediction rather than selecting from a dropdown list like AppWriter. That’s great for pupils who type quickly and don’t want to slow down writing speed. Grammarly is used a great deal at higher education and is good for making sure the sentences you type make sense. There are loads more. ClaroSpeak+ where you can scan in text from printed materials and have text to speech and word prediction. Read&Write, a keyboard addition that gives word prediction and word definitions. 

Note-taking - active listening.

active listening which develops good note taking can be helped by tools like Glean or Audio Notetaker. Useful in capturing important points in a lesson, lecture or seminar. Just make sure the person you are recording knows you are doing that and is happy to be recorded. If you prefer to have your notes organised rather than recorded then OneNote (part of the Microsoft Office) is useful as notes can be stored in folders and information can be enter via text, drawing, audio, weblinks, photos. It also has immersive reader for playback. 

Phonics - sounds

one of the biggest problems for the dyslexic is phonological spelling. It’s what many dyslexics try to do when they spell and get it wrong. Homophones cause a lot of difficulties - night and knight sound the same but are completely different so software like the immersive reader that incorporates symbols to identify words helps. But the main app for this is Read&Write which gives definitions of words - a built-in Theasarus on the package. Another tool is the Claro Phoneme Reader. I like this as it breaks the sounds down into components with the written word being shown. It’s accurate as well. It’s a website so needs to run from being online. Then there are the games approach for younger children like Nessy’s Hairy Letters.

Organisation - being organised is often a problem for the dyslexic learner.

Using colour can be helpful. Google Keep uses coloured notes which can be in a bullet-point list. Also you add labels which are actually folders to put these notes in. Sticky Notes and Post-iTs are good ways to jot down notes whilst listening to a lecture or lesson. Post-its allow notes to be organised. Then there are MindMapping tools like MindMeister and Mind42 - both online and free as well as the standard tools like Inspiration and MindView Mindmaps allow the organisation of information in a form for planning, revision and composition of work as the paid packages allow output into different formats. If you need to project manage then there are useful tools that keep you and others on track. Trello is a good tool for doing that. Sections are created and organised into tabs that you can add to and check with your colleagues. Useful in the workplace. Memory joggers and reminders are useful to Remember The Milk helps you do that but also setting calendar alarms help too. 

There are more to enumerate and more topics to cover. For more information do checkout my blogsite http://aas123.com for more information. One additional piece of information I have been writing this on Google docs and I noticed that when I press on the link icon to put these direct links into the document it has a useful automated search feature. Cool, worth checking it is the site you want to link to though. But it speeded up the writing of this article. 

Myles Pilling

Specialist SEND ICT Consultant, AccessAbility Solutions

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