Technology to Help with Learning Disabilities?

GotSanity asks: "I have a little brother who is now 18 and still can not read or do basic math. At an early age he was diagnosed with a level 10 mental handicap. I am curious as to what technology is available to help teach him to read. The major problems with most educational software I have found is that they both cater to younger minds (even though he has a learning disability he still is involved with everyday teenager activities like video games and music) and are often far to expensive for a working class family. I originally got him a copy of Typing of the Dead, and through it he has been learning to read and spell better. What novel education ideas can the Slashdot community suggest?"

Video-game related material

I learned to read and type as a kid with Nintendo Power magazine and Mario Teaches Typing.

Re:Video-game related material

Video-game related material actually can help. My partner had problems breathing when she was born and suffered motor control damage in her brain (which led her to be epileptic ever since). While mentally she has always been rather intelligent, she was phyiscally slow, which led many of her classmates to assume that she was retarded; they picked on her a lot for it.

Based on advice, her parents encouraged her to play video games - especially Tetris - to help increase her coordination. Whether or not it was the cause, today she is about as coordinated as your average person (and can beat my socks off at Tetris, to boot! :) ).

Re:Video-game related material

So he's an otherwise healthy 18 year old? And kiddie games are out of the question eh?

What do healthy 18 year olds like?
Pr0n of course!!
So make a webpage with math problems, and if he gets it right, he gets a pr0n pic. This would take all of 15 minutes to write the html for (okay maybe 45minutes if you get distracted by the Pr0n), and would be a simple incentive system.

Okay, okay, so it doesn't have to be nudie pics, but seriously, some sort of quickly made webpage with multiple problems that have an appealing reward might be useful (mp3 plays, or if he gets a high enough score you'll take him to dinner or something... if it's a fun outcome, it should be a positive experience for him, and he just might learn something too.

If you take my advice on the MP3, just promise not to tell the RIAA it was my idea! *adjusts his foil hat*

Re:Video-game related material

When I was in elementary school, a test that they administered at school determined that I was typing around 800 words per minute.

Of course, that was largely because I figured out that, assuming that the final message you entered was correct, the algorithm counted the number of times you pressed the space bar. So, you just had to simply hold down the space bar, delete the line, hold down the space bar, etc, and then after several tries type in the correct message.

Hands-on and human interaction

My aunt was a teacher in special education, and I had the opportunity to help out on a few occasions. From talking to her and just interacting with the kids, hands-on learning and human interaction seem to be the best way for many of these kids to learn. Imitation and being able to see the concepts in their hands is probably a far better means of education than just a computer. However, I don't doubt that computer programs coupled with perhaps some sort of hardware controller and a human guide would be beneficial. Good luck to anyone who is helping anyone out with disabilities. Just being there to help works wonders on its own.

agreed

As someone who helped LD kids in k-12 (while i myself was in k-12) its important to remember the differences between someone with LD and someone without. Many people assume that LD is some sort of delayed reaction, that eventually they will learn like a normal person, which just isnt true. Every avenue of enforcement is needed to effectively teach, computers or other 'single avenue' methods are largely useless. They will respond the best to a human teacher approaching them with a very diverse toolset, as opposed to being battered with the same approach like computer learning. Keep in mind its NOT easy and there is little precedent for acheiving good success with people who have LD.

How about this:

Number Munchers. [mtu.edu] Nuff said.

Write your own tools

From my experience, educational software is usually laughably simple, especially given the price. If you don't totally suck at teh programming, try writing some of your own tools for him and then work with him to refine them and target them towards his specific issues. It doesn't take a rocket scientist. Get a copy of perl/tk or something and start hacking.

Re:Write your own tools

Get a copy of perl/tk or something and start hacking.

I'd add: get a copy of Logo* and start hacking with him.

* (and, ideally, a "turtle" or some other fun drawing robot - you could even DIY)

Re:Write your own tools

If you don't totally suck at teh programming, try writing some of your own tools for him

Or, if you do suck at programming, hook up with someone who doesn't. Necessity being the mother of invention and all , you may just build yourself a wildly successful product. Or, you might only have a fun time and help out your brother. Either way it's a win.

Re:Write your own tools

A few years ago I tried to find software to teach simple math to my autistic son. When the search failed I wrote my own open source program [sourceforge.net] to do it. (First this old UNIX dog had to learn to program for Windows). I knew that lots of other nerds have autistic kids and I hoped that a few would jump in to contribute to the program. None ever did.

The program worked in its unrefined form and now my son is off learning more advanced things. So I'm done with the program. Still, I wish that the open source development model would have worked here.

DSM Diagnosis?

What is the nature of your brother's disability? PDD? DS? Kanner's autism? Dyslexia? CHI? What defines "effective" software is going to vary considerably based on the diagnosis...

Just curious

What is a level 10 mental handicap?

Re:Just curious

A good example of a Level 10 mental handicap can be found at this website [cmdrtaco.net].

Re:Just curious

OK, nobody else has posted a serious response to this. The original poster was making a Dungeons and Dragons joke in poor taste. There is no such thing (AFAIK) as a "level n mental handicap". He's saying that his brother is highly mentally handicapped.

Wild guess

Maybe FFX and FFX-2. Lots of spoken dialog with captions. Actually any TV that can show CC without having mute on might be good to try. I really don't know what else to tell you. Maybe looking into some adult reading eductation programs in your local area to see if they have any tips.

A advice

Since most of the replies are crap i am going to post an advice that has helped me learn to read very well:
Read as many books as posible - start with the really easy and move on. In the beginning your brother will properly need someone to read the words to him - he will then reconise them later. A good tool might be festival [ed.ac.uk]

As for natual selection post above:
Our society is rich - it can afford (and should) aford to help everybody, how wish to be helped

I may suggest...

HUKED ON FONIKS WERKED FER ME!

...Seriously, we use many different programs with our home-schooled kids, but I am most impressed with these guys [helpme2learn.com]. I'm 33 and I actually found their spanish program useful for myself. It DOES use cartoon characters, but it was educational enough that I was able to learn from it, while at the same time practical enough that I didn't feel silly using it.

Kurzweil Educational Systems

Check out Kurzweil 3000 http://www.kurzweiledu.com/products.asp/ [kurzweiledu.com].

It will OCR the documents and then read it outloud, giving you help along the way. I gather it was designed with Special Ed teachers' advice.

Windows and Mac

This is a very common problem, sadly.

I left computer engineering to persue a major in Special Education. My main desire is to work with middle school or older persons with disabilities. And the problem described by the original poster is a common issue. Age appropriate activitied for the mentally handicapped are seriously lacking.

It just isn't right to have a 22 year old man putting colored blocks into the right shape holes -- no matter how severe the handicap. I think that technology can be useful (but most likely you, or someone with programming ability) are going to have to create it yourself. In a similar manner, it is often up to the family to be creative and create age-appropriate activities for their handicapped family member.

The schools, at least my program, are seriously working on approaching this issue and designing activites for people like your brother. But they fail as often as they succeed.

[Don't ask how I ended up in this major from computer engineering. I'm not sure myself.]

No idea

diagnosed with a level 10 mental handicap

What's the scale?

How about watching TV with the closed captions turned on? I think it's standard in every television now. Poke around the on-screen menus. Start with really easy kids shows and progress from there. I think with a lot of DVDs you can turn on English subtitles even with the English sound track. Maybe it'll help tie the written words to the spoken ones, and some sort of connection will result.

Helpful software

As a special education teacher, a home schooling mother with two learning-disabled children, and l/d adult married to another l/d adult, may I say that frankly there is not enough information to go on.

Every LD child (and LD adult) is different, every one of us has different needs and different learning styles. Does he learn better by hearing something, by seeing it, or by touch. In most cases the best bet is to mix all three.

Video games are an excellent resource for this and best bet is to find something he will actually do and then stick with it. Games that require basic reading and simple math skills are very helpful. (We found several Gamecube games work well for this as most do not "speak". Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing are good examples.)

I have found that there are a wide variety of free games on-line that aren't to "childish" but are helpful in reinforcing skills being worked on. A few are http://www.dositey.com/ [dositey.com], http://www.internet4classrooms.com/index.htm [internet4classrooms.com], http://www.literacycenter.net/literacycenter_net/l essonview_en.htm [literacycenter.net], http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/jeather/maths/dicti onary.html [ash.org.au], http://teachers.teach-nology.com/ [teach-nology.com].

The best relatively cheap learning software we have found, that is at least tolerable for adults (not too cutesy) are the http://www.helpme2learn.com/ [helpme2learn.com] "Help Me 2 Learn" programs. My husband and I have both used the Spanish software for ourselves and found it one of the few that eaither of us could really learn from. My kids love all the other software and we have found that the style it is taught works for all 3 children, who each have very different learning styles.

May I suggest checking out some home schooling websites, you will find many resources for a variety of learning disabilities and types.

ATTN: Trolls on Slashdot

You know we all like the odd troll now and again and nothing wrong with a bit of Linux/Windows/Mac bashing whatever, but it is pretty low to mock some guy with a disability. People don't ask for these things in life.

Some restaint by the usual trolls would be in order. If you have nothing worth saying to help the poster of the original article then just keep quiet and wait for the next KDE/Linspire/Mac Mini mod/Windows is taking over the world thread etc.

Better idea

I have a little brother who is now 18 and still can not read or do basic math.

Get him a slashdot account, he will fit right in.

Re:If he really can't do that at that age

First, to the parent poster: Often, the issue isn't psychology but neurology. Besides, technology can solve some psychological problems (after all, a psychiatrist is a physician who applies pharmaceutical technologies to psychological problems).

To the submitter: I suspect you'd be better off talking to a support group of families with similar issues than the /. crowd. But failing that, you might try combining screen-reading software with level-appropriate reading that's also age appropriate (perhaps sports or gaming articles on websites), or try combining books on tape/audible with print copies of the same books.