dysTalk Useful Technologies For Dyslexics - Talks - dysTalk

About the speaker: Dr Ian Smythe, a dyslexia consultant, works on specific learning difficulties in different language and cultural environments. His international work developed out of his PhD research into cognitive differences in dyslexics in different languages. He has worked with foreign governments including the Hong Kong Education Department and also non-governmental organisations - conducting workshops, lectures and seminars around the world (including lecturing in Brazil in Portuguese) with universities, dyslexia teaching organisations and local support groups. He is an expert on dyslexia and technology.

Further information about this Talk

A full list of the useful tools available can be found in our resources section here.

Visit Ian Smythe's blog here.

Key Points Covered in This Talk:

• Available Technology: Some of the more well known assistive technologies are text-to-speech, speech-to-text, concept mapping, iMindMap, webspiration, mindmeister, Mindmaker and Mindbreakers. However, these technologies do not cover a huge range of problems for the dyslexic individual. By looking more broadly there are numerous useful technologies that can help with many of the issues faced by people with dyslexia.
• Recording phone calls: People with memory problems can struggle to remember details of phone conversations. If you use skype there are lots of different services where you can record the skype conversation (either just the sound or the video as well). Thinks like CallBurner and Pamela are excellent programs that record skype.
• Working out new software: Explaining new software (e.g. Microsoft word) can be difficult for people who have never used it before. This can be made much easier if the person explaining can see the other persons screen. There is free software that can be used for this: e.g. TeamViewer, Mikogo. You can look at someone else's screen and even take it over. These are excellent for tutorials and assisting with something that's on the web.
• Reading Assistance: As well as things like text-to-speak there are ways of summarizing the text, cutting down the number of words. Software such as Summarizer does this. Microsoft word has this functionality built in as well. It's not perfect but is still remarkably good. You could start off with 10,000 words, then reduce it to 2,500 and then use text-to-speech. These are great tools for those with dyslexia and don't like reading.
• Meeting deadlines: Online there are lots of systems where you can put in a date and it will send you an email the day before, an hour before or whenever you specify. If you want to pay a bit more it will even send you an SMS (text message) to your phone. You can also have timers on your computer to remind you of birthdays etc. A clock can tell you to stop on a certain project after a certain time. You can even get software to prevent you going online and losing track of time called KeepMeOut. It stops you going into things like twitter or Facebook and spending too much time on them.
• Remembering passwords: There is software that allows you to save your passwords offline or online. The advantage of online is that you can access them anyware.
• Backing Up: Things like Dropbox are free to use and allow you to backup work.
• Dyslexia friendly search engines: Standard search engines provide results that have lots of words. You can get a visual representation of search results through sites such as searchme.
• Getting lost: Using Google latitude you can take a snapshot on your smartphone send it to somebody and they know where you are. You don't have to know because the picture will go to the person (or even a taxi driver) and they can find you.
• There is so much assistive technology available to help people with dyslexia overcome their problems. It's good for those with learning difficulties (such as dyslexia or dyspraxia) and is good for everyone else as well.