Assistive Technology For Students with Dyslexia

Students diagnosed with dyslexia demonstrate an impairment in the ability to decode, encode, retain and access phonological information. Phonological information refers to the corresponding sound to a letter or grapheme. This impairment makes it difficult with students diagnosed with dyslexia to read words, because breaking them down is difficult.

Spelling unknown words better known as, encoding, requires a student to listen to an unknown spoken word and break that word down into individual sounds and letters. This process is repeated for each sound/phoneme within each word. Once the word is completed, it then requires sounding out or decoding to check to see if the result looks like the real word that is intended.  This is the reason that early spelling abilities may predict later reading abilities. (Oullette & Senechal, 2017) Reading and spelling both require phonological skills, therefore people with dyslexia are more likely to make sound and/or spelling errors that attribute to reading errors.  This may indicate that some sounds are not being adequately processed.

Processing deficits may present in several areas including: phonological awareness, poor phonological memory or short-term memory, poor speech perception, poor letter-sound decoding skills and poor writing.  As defined by Scarborough and Brady (2002), phonological processing refers to the “the formation, retention, and/or use of phonological codes or speech while…speaking, listening, remembering, learning, naming, thinking, reading, or writing.” In combination, all of these tasks can overwhelm the short-term memory’s capability and create a breakdown of one or more of these components for the student.  This starts to become particularly evident around the third to fourth grades when students make the well-known shift from learning to read to reading to learn.

It is the position of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) that speech-language pathologists play a “critical and direct role in the development of literacy for children and adolescents with communication disorders” (ASHA, 2001, p. 1). This role includes the identification of children who are at risk for reading and writing problems, such as dyslexia. 

There are a variety of related-services and compensatory skills that can be considered for students diagnosed with dyslexia.  Each student is unique and requires a complete and thorough evaluation that includes all members of the students educational team.  Technology can be considered and trialed, when appropriate, as a compensatory strategy to help support students with independence and progression. Some types of technology to be considered for students with dyslexia are discussed in detail below.  If you have questions about your child’s reading, writing or diagnosis of dyslexia or are an assistive technology specialist that would like to add to this list, please reach out through this link for more information.

Assistive Technology Resources for Students with Dyslexia

Google Read Write

Use of a word processor or lap top has proven to improve handwriting and allow for more independence for a student.  The Google Read Write chrome extension further supports students by empowering them to use additional functions, such as talk-to-text (reducing the load on the short-term working memory), word prediction, dictionary (to ensure they have selected the correct word) and text-to-talk to have documents or even the students own work read back to them for auditory assist with editing.  Click below to learning more about Google Read Write.

Equatio for Math

Eqautio is a chrome extension that allows for talk-to-text math equations.  This is especially helpful for student that may have difficulty with writing out and aligning equations, whereby using a low tech alternative, such as graph paper, is not enough.  Learn more about Equatio by clicking on the video below.

BeeLine Reader 

BeeLine Reader makes reading on-screen easier using an eye-guiding color gradient to move your eyes from one line to the next.  This has been shown to be helpful for students demonstrating difficulty with tracking while reading.  

Reading with Bookshare and Learning Ally

Both of these options provide students with e-books that are adapted to be read to the student to keep them focused on comprehension and up to speed with the rest of their class mates.  This is a very helpful resource for students with in-class reading and also for their independent reading at home. 

Students can follow along with highlighted text on a lap top, an iPad or can listen on-the-go using their phones.  Bookshare offers the option for e-texts to be visually altered using a font that is evidence-based as being more visually beneficial for students with dyslexia call “open dyslexic font.”  Additionally, Bookshare currently offers free accounts to parents whose children are diagnosed with a learning disability.  For more information on both reading resources click the video links below for Bookshare and Learning Ally.