Dyslexic learners and learning centre provision - could do better?

Report of a CELT project on supporting students through innovation and researchLearning Centre staff at the University of Wolverhampton generally have good awareness of disability issues and try to ensure services and facilities are accessible to a wide range of users. However, little work had been done directly with users to explore their views of our services and the problems they might face when using them. The research targeted dyslexic learners as the University has a relatively large population of students with this disability. In addition many of our services rely on an ability to cope with printed and electronic information and these might pose particular problems for users with dyslexia. The services might include apparently simple elements such as guides to particular Learning Centres through to more complex examples including the subject web pages and information skills workshops

How do technologies meet the needs of the writer with dyslexia? An examination of functions scaffolding the transcription and proofreading in text production aimed towards researchers and practitioners in education

Technological reading and writing tools can help students with dyslexia improve their writing, but students do not use reading and writing functions as much as expected. However, research addressing relevant technological functions is scarce. This study explored the needs of writers with dyslexia and how technological writing tools developed for three Nordic languages meet these needs. Snowball sampling was used to identify different technological features, spellchecker, word prediction, auto-correction, text-to-speech and speech-to-text functions available in nine widely used programmes were investigated. The results indicated that students with moderate spelling difficulties can now achieve accurate spellings using the most sophisticated spelling aids; however, most of these features require time and attention, and this can disturb writing fluency and hamper text production. The implication of this study is that the underlying conflict between spelling accuracy and writing fluency must be actively managed, which necessitates competence in the use of technological tools for both students and teachers in school. Also, further development of tools for scaffolding transcription must consider the dilemma of achieving both writing fluency and spelling accuracy. Further, the accuracy of the aid for students with severe spelling difficulties remains unclear and must be investigated.publishedVersio

Disability Awareness for Libraries – How Have the Open Rose Group Used Their Training Package in Four Member Institutions?

At Leeds Met, we have delivered four workshops on dyslexia to over 70 staff. We watched the fi lm, did a language de-coding exercise, a short quiz, we also asked staff to pick out who they thought was dyslexic from a picture list of 30 famous people, varying our materials and delivery styles. We then did something a little different to our usual training format and made the scenario session in the supporting materials very hands on, the idea being to take staff out of their comfort zones and make the library a frustrating place to be

Examining academic confidence and study support needs for university students with dyslexia and/or developmental coordination disorder

Higher education providers are seeing a shift from externally-funded support for students with specific learning difficulties (SpLD), to a need to develop more inclusive practices generally. However, the precise needs of students with different SpLD diagnoses is unknown. 367 students in England and Wales (163 students with dyslexia, 50 students with developmental coordination disorder (DCD/‘dyspraxia’), 62 students with dyslexia and DCD, and 92 non-SpLD students) completed an online questionnaire to determine: (i) how confident they are with their study-related capabilities, (ii) the types of support they access, and (iii) their views on current inclusive practices. Students with dyslexia and students with dyslexia/DCD reported lower confidence in their grades and studying than non-SpLD students, and accessed more technology-related support than students with DCD only. Examination accommodations supporting writing were common for all SpLD students. Inclusive practices were perceived positively, although different priorities were seen across groups. The findings demonstrate the complexities inherent in providing effective support for all students at university, with the varied profiles across and within SpLD groups suggesting that an individualised approach is necessary. Practical implications are discussed

Automatic Correction of Arabic Dyslexic Text

This paper proposes an automatic correction system that detects and corrects dyslexic errors in Arabic text. The system uses a language model based on the Prediction by Partial Matching (PPM) text compression scheme that generates possible alternatives for each misspelled word. Furthermore, the generated candidate list is based on edit operations (insertion, deletion, substitution and transposition), and the correct alternative for each misspelled word is chosen on the basis of the compression codelength of the trigram. The system is compared with widely-used Arabic word processing software and the Farasa tool. The system provided good results compared with the other tools, with a recall of 43%, precision 89%, F1 58% and accuracy 81%

Dyslexic Students: Success Factors for Support in a Learning Environment

This study examines possible success factors when developing technical solutions for dyslexic students. Findings in the literature, in a web survey answered by students and in the experiences from the development process at the Medical Faculty Library, Lund University, were used to find out potential success factors and difficulties. The literature found describes what dyslexia is, the situation for dyslexic students and available technical compensatory devices. One conclusion is that it is important to recognize the needs of individual students and choose flexible technical solutions