An approach to the diagnosis and remediation of developmental dyslexia using microcomputers

Abstract

The diagnosis of developmental dyslexia currently requires considerable clinical expertise which is both costly and time-consuming. The remediation of developmental dyslexia is, at best, difficult for the concerned. The normal diagnostic route is not readily (or easily) available to secondary schools and is almost certainly not within the scope of secondary school budgets. Furthermore, dyslexia is not widely tested for or even recognized by some education authorities. Microcomputers are no longer uncommon in schools and are still an underused resource. We propose an easy to use microcomputer based early screening system that will supplement existing testing strategies. The system that we propose has a secondary purpose. The tests will also provide us with data to help with ongoing research into the remediation and further understanding of dyslexia. We propose that enough data will allow us to develop software that will learn the grammatical mistakes made by a given dyslexic. We call this the dyslexic on a disk approach. The data provided by such software will not only allow the early diagnosis of a widely unrecognized, misunderstood and debilitating disorder but will also support research into the nature of the condition itself. We conclude by illustrating how such software can be built and employed. We propose several techniques for the analysis and possible real time microcomputer based remediation of the problem in hand.