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Education Technology

Technology to Help with Learning Disabilities? 330

Posted by Cliff from the education-without-condescension dept.
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?"
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Technology to Help with Learning Disabilities? More

Technology to Help with Learning Disabilities?

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  • Video-game related material (Score:4, Funny)

    by Andrevan ( 621897 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @05:56PM (#11672222) Journal
    I learned to read and type as a kid with Nintendo Power magazine and Mario Teaches Typing.

    • Re:Video-game related material (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:06PM (#11672328) Homepage
      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 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zutfen ( 841314 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:15PM (#11672429) Homepage
      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*
    • My brother had a combo of extreem dyslexia and hearing loss which caused a lot of problems in school for him. I was lucky enough to have a teacher who took a special interest in him and learned new teaching techniques in order to help him. He is now in university which is honestly something no one expected when he could not read at all for so long. For him RC car magazines were great, it was something he loved and they offered pictures and diagrams which he could understand even when too frustrated with

  • Hands-on and human interaction (Score:5, Interesting)

    by drivinghighway61 ( 812488 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:01PM (#11672277) Homepage
    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.
    • being able to see the concepts in their hands is probably a far better means of education than just a computer

      Human Relations. Well.

      CC.

    • agreed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jeffmeden ( 135043 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:21PM (#11672494) Homepage Journal
      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.
    • I have severe dyslexia and completely agree with the parent poster

      I would add that it is very important to have someone who can diagnose and understands the learning problem(s). My Mom even became a school teacher because dyslexia runs in the family. I had all kinds of problems because I have dyslexia, but have always been able to figure things out. I started reading when I was three and one of the most traumatic times of my childhood was being accused of cheating repeatedly in the 4th grade because I

  • How about this: (Score:5, Informative)

    by Ironsides ( 739422 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:01PM (#11672279) Homepage Journal
    Number Munchers. [mtu.edu] Nuff said.
    • Wow! Thanks man, you just made my day!

    • ReadSay PROnounce (Score:3, Interesting)

      by js7a ( 579872 )
      I make the ReadSay PROnounce English [readsay.com] system, which uses speech recognition to evaluate and diagnose pronunciation, and help with oral reading. I've been offering it for $499, but I'll give a $100 discount to anyone who says they saw it on Slashdot (the $499 price is to keep distributor partners happy.) I've been selling this since September, and all the existing customers (as few as there are so far) are happy with it. I'm (1) in the process of arranging two comparitive evaluations, which will each take

  • Write your own tools (Score:5, Interesting)

    by n1ywb ( 555767 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:03PM (#11672294) Homepage Journal
    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 (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yes - but educational software is simple for a reason, and very planned in it's simplicity. Every educational software company has a few dev's, yes - but they have a leigion of instructional designers and people who specilize in communicatating with children/disabled people to actualy create the content.

      • Re:Write your own tools (Score:3, Insightful)

        by n1ywb ( 555767 )
        No, it's usually simple in that it sucks and breaks all the standard UI guidelines because it was written by idiots who don't know how to program. And none of those people know this guy's brother as well as he does. And there are still a lot of kids with problems out there so obviously the experts of which you speak don't have all the answers. Again, it doesn't take a genious to see that most of the crappy infotainment out there isn't really educational.

        He's into video games eh? Crack open a remedial read

        • Again, it doesn't take a genious to see that most of the crappy infotainment out there isn't really educational.

          Gosh, no.
        • Certainly no one knows his little brother better than he does, but he may as well use Python [python.org] and GCompris [gcompris.free.fr] instead of Perl/Tk to hack together some educational games for his little brother. Why not use some of the already developed open source material out there targetted precisely toward this sort of thing. You could put together a new simple game with GCompris in no time flat, and it already has over 60 little games (from chess to algebra games to geography to reading) bundled already.

          Jedidiah.

      • Re:Write your own tools (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Bishop ( 4500 )
        they have a leigion of instructional designers

        If only that was the case. Most "educational" software I have had the displeasure of looking at was a mess put together by well meaning but otherwise useless hacks. One of the underlying problems is a poor understanding of computers, and how computers can relate to learning.

    • Re:Write your own tools (Score:4, Insightful)

      by I confirm I'm not a ( 720413 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:11PM (#11672392) Journal

      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 (Score:4, Interesting)

      by sfjoe ( 470510 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:27PM (#11672550)
      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 (Score:4, Interesting)

      by harry_dolan ( 147689 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:42PM (#11672704) Homepage
      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.

      • Cool! My autistic son is struggling with basic math right now. I'll check that out.

      • Re:Write your own tools (Score:3, Informative)

        by MikeFM ( 12491 )
        Getting the word out and organizing a community around your project isn't always an easy thing. PR is as much a part of opensource as it is of any commercial product. I've had a couple fairly successful small projects and have yet to get more than a few minor bug fixes returned to me. It's really okay though because I never expected that much help. Unless you write a large project or agressively seek out help then you aren't likely to get it.

    • Re:Write your own tools (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I've heard of a program that uses a bouncing ball along with a text-to-speech synth for dyslexic readers, and it seemed really helpful in teaching its users how to read. Training him to focus on things that make no sense at first is one key step.

      It might not be so hard to design a simple tool that buffered text along with a synchronized bouncing ball and audio (the Festival library looks good). Eventually you could scale it to allow for hyperlinks to a visual dictionary. There must be software like this

    • Even if you're not a programmer try joining the mailing list for somethings like Pygame. If you have ideas for games you can mention them and some bored developers might help you out with making some of these games.

      It sounds as if the biggest change you're looking for from the usual edutainment titles is that it needs to have a theme more appropiate for older children or adults. In most cases these kinds of changes can be made just be theming an existing program. You can change fluffy bunny alphabet into z

    • Re:Write your own tools (Score:3, Informative)

      by wljones ( 79862 )
      Writing your own would be reinventing the wheel. Go to http://www.jerrypournelle.com and check on Roberta Pournelle's reading program. It works, and the Pournelles are rather proud ofit.

  • DSM Diagnosis? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EricTheGreen ( 223110 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:03PM (#11672302) Homepage
    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...

    • Re:DSM Diagnosis? (Score:2, Offtopic)

      by fm6 ( 162816 )
      How many people at Slashdot know the DSM? The questioner is appealing to out knowledge of computer software, not our training in developmental psychology. From our point of view, "He can't read or write very well" is a perfectly adequate description.

      I actually do have some familiarity with the DSM [wikipedia.org] having had my own mental abberations submitted to its Procrustean [wikipedia.org] taxonomy. I'm tempted to make some critical comments, but life's too short. Suffice to say that the headshrinkers I most respect consider it usef

      • How many people at Slashdot know the DSM? The questioner is appealing to out knowledge of computer software, not our training in developmental psychology. From our point of view, "He can't read or write very well" is a perfectly adequate description.

        If "he can't read or write well" is adaquate, then Slashdot was the wrong place to ask the question.

        I actually do have some familiarity with the DSM having had my own mental abberations submitted to its Procrustean taxonomy. I'm tempted to make some critica

        • So you seem to have two points: Slashdotters shouldn't be asked the question, and if they are, they should be provided with information they don't know how to interpret. Yeah, that's helpful.
          • Huh? I didn't say slashdotters shouldn't be asked the question. I suggested that the information provided is not adaquate for giving a worthwhile answer and that anyone who is satisified with "he can't read or write" is certainly not going to give a worthwhle answer. Whether or not more information should involve a DSM diagnosis is irrelevant at this point (although it would help). This guy obviously has some serious disabilities that need to be specifically addressed. There is a big difference between aut
      • My son is autistic. He also has trouble reading and writing, but the software that is most useful to him would likely be useless for someone who is badly dyslexic or Down's syndrome. Knowing the specific diagnosis can actually be quite important when devising treatments. While some diagnosis are just labels slapped on poorly understood symptoms, others convey alot more about the nature of the problem and how it is best treated.
        • Perhaps standard labels can be helpful in specific ways. But you can only do so much with them. I speak from painful experience when I say that labels very often serve as barrier to understanding the specific individual's specific problems. Too often I've seen mental health professionals underemphasize some problems and overemphasize others simply because the "diagnosis" said they had to.

          In any case, it's pretty dumb to insist on "correct" labels when most of the people you're talking to have no idea what

          • In any case, it's pretty dumb to insist on "correct" labels when most of the people you're talking to have no idea what the labels mean.

            I'm sure there are plenty of slashdotters who understand the correct labels for the various developmental disorders. These same people might also have some knowledge of good software for different disabilities. These are the people who should be answering the question. People who don't know the correct "labels" aren't going to know the correct software.

            -matthew


      • "He can't read or write very well" is a perfectly adequate description.

        Perfectly adequate if you want to toss a dart at the neurological dartboard and hope it hits something useful. I suspect the original poster is hoping for something a bit more precise. I would also presume that said poster would probably have a good idea of a diagnosis if his brother's impairment was observed as long ago as his post indicates.

        I listed 5 separate potential barriers to learning, several with a pronounced physiolog

  • Just curious (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jim_v2000 ( 818799 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:03PM (#11672304)
    What is a level 10 mental handicap?

  • Wild guess (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Fr05t ( 69968 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:03PM (#11672305)
    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 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tomjen ( 839882 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:06PM (#11672332)
    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
    • Agreed. I was hooked on the Hangman game that came with the Speak & Spell; maybe rigging something like that up with festival would help?

      You could also do Wheel of Fortune, handheld or maybe on the computer (I don't know if there are any recent versions).

    • Re:A advice (Score:3, Interesting)

      by outofoptions ( 199169 )
      Also, don't question what the material is as long as he will read it. This one sank in as I stood aruguing with my three year old over wanting to buy a comic book. Has to have been on of the dumbest fights I ever picked. The point was, he was reading and I should be encouraging that. Yes. He was 3 and reading. Point is, censoring what he reads, with obvious exceptions, could be a mistake and an unnessecary road block to your over all goal.

      • Re:A advice (Score:2, Insightful)

        by tomjen ( 839882 )
        A good advice. Also as a side effect he will know bad litterature later one and will develop taste of his own.

        You might want to have your child/brother read Donald Duck (is it is created by an evil empire) this is fun for people to read so they will try (even if they have to guess the words)

        And if/when he wants to read past bedtime ignore it, the important part is that he reads.

  • I may suggest... (Score:5, Informative)

    by ShamusYoung ( 528944 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:06PM (#11672336) Homepage
    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.

  • What do his teachers say? (Score:3, Informative)

    by toygeek ( 473120 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:11PM (#11672384) Journal
    Certaintly he has a teacher or doctor that could explain his handicap to you and maybe they could explain how technology could help.

    I agree with another poster who said that human interaction in a hands-on environment would probably be best. I'm sure you've already explored that route though and I doubt you're trying to circumvent that, but rather are trying to augment his learning.

    Have you done any extensive googling? A search for "handicapped education technology disabled" might turn up alot. I did a search on those exact terms and ended up with

    http://www.assis-tech.com/

    Which I got off of this page here:

    http://www.eskimo.com/~jlubin/disabled/all.htm

    Perhaps some good searching is in order? Maybe you know about these things already. It wouldn't hurt to look around though.

  • Kurzweil Educational Systems (Score:5, Informative)

    by notthepainter ( 759494 ) <oblique&alum,mit,edu> on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:12PM (#11672399) Homepage
    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. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by frob2600 ( 309047 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:12PM (#11672401)
    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 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Quiet_Desperation ( 858215 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:15PM (#11672426)
    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.

    • Re:No idea (Score:2, Interesting)

      by mutterc ( 828335 )
      My nephew (now 6) learned to read at an early age doing this. (He's not handicapped or anything, in fact probably a bit on the bright side of normal).

      A negative side, effect, though, is that his first words were all registered trademarks. (Really! He'd point to my phone and say 'Motorola').

  • Education (Score:3, Informative)

    by Quiberon ( 633716 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:16PM (#11672438) Journal
    Sign up with OFSET http://www.ofset.org/ [ofset.org] . See what they have; a couple of Live Linux CDs to start with. See if you can articulate what your brother needs to the members; maybe some will have similar requirements, and ideas for approaching them. See what you are willing to program, or test, or document, or translate. There are tools.

    Starts here http://gcompris.free.fr/ [gcompris.free.fr] and works up, you may get here http://wims.unice.fr/wims/wims.cgi [unice.fr] before you know it.

    It doesn't require money. It does require a desire to help. You help your brother, you help others, others help you.

  • Friedrich Froebel, who was mentally challenged, founded the idea of the kindergarten. He used sandpaper blocks for each letter so that children could have a tactile feel for them and use other sensory modalities to reinforce memory of them. The Montessori teaching methods use similar approaches to Froebel's (see http://www.montessori.edu/). Repetition until mastery is what is needed. For your brother that may take a long time but wont it be great if he succeeds?

  • Helpful software (Score:5, Informative)

    by HMarieY ( 316249 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:20PM (#11672475) Homepage
    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.
  • Jerry Pournelle's wife has been selling a reading software package for Windows and MacOS for years. For more information, read the proud husband's write up at http://www.jerrypournelle.com/Reading.html


    To order, surf to http://www.readingtlc.com/, it's about $200 per seat.

  • ATTN: Trolls on Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:26PM (#11672537)
    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.

    • If i had mod points i would mod you insightful.

      Reading through the replys on this thread i am disgusted with the majority of them.

      For the trolls that posted to this story i just have this to say... how about i come over to your house (ignoring time/distance/not knowing you personally etc) beat you about the head with a baseball bat (im a Brit but to fit in i'll use Baseball instead of Cricket).. until you have level 10 mental disability. How would you feel then having a bunch of ignorant idiots post crap
      • i have known plenty of people with disabilities that like to joke about their situation.
        • indeed :) just like i can joke about them if its in good humour.

          However the majority of trolls on here are just cheap popping at people with disabilities, thats just sad at best
        • But that's for them to do if they want. It's all great for me to make fun of myself if I choose, but I generally don't like others laughing at my shortcomings, and I sure wouldn't generalize my comments with something that is an honest diability to include everyone with it. I could be LD and say, "well aren't I just a dumbass", cause I i have trouble learning something. i wouldn't say "well, we're all a bunch of dumbasses. we can't learn."
  • Use technology sparingly. What has to happen is he has to learn without the help of a computer. Read stuff he's intrested to him/with him. If he's 18 and still can't read, maybe there's more wrong then meets the eye. My son is LD/ADD and the best thing we did was getting him involved with other kids his age. See if you can find other people his age that want to help. But a technology isn't always THE answer with this kind of deal I am afraid.
  • One on one work with a talented human will be so much more useful for him than any machine could ever hope to be.

    Example... you can have a baby listen to a tape of Chinese for hours at a time and they won't get better at Chinese. You have a Chinese person talk to a baby in Chinese for a hour a day and you see a huge jump in proficiency. Human contact is the key not technology. Technology can help but only as a tool in the hands of a skilled person who is well trained to handle this type of thing.

    Orton Gil
  • He's into video games, so why not buy him some videogame magazines or issues of Playboy, or books and magazines of anything he's interested in, and why don't the two of you go through the books and magazines together working out what the words on the page are?

    Learning to read is learning to read, no matter what age. It's recognizing the patterns of letters which create words.

    The subject matter is a different story all together, and you already said he has a mature mind. The task at hand is to find subje

  • Turn on Closed Captioning (Score:4, Informative)

    by awtbfb ( 586638 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:44PM (#11672719)
    Turn on closed captioning for every TV in the house. Koskinen, et al (1986) had some good results with this. It wasn't dramatic, but there were some small improvements.

    Koskinen, P.; Wilson, R. M.; Gambrell, L. B.; and Jensema, C. (1986). Using closed captioned television to enhance reading skills of learning disabled students. National Reading Conference Yearbook, 35, 61-65.
  • I don't know what level you're targetting, but I haven't seen any (high modded posts) mention GCompris [gcompris.free.fr] yet. It's simple, colourful, pleasantly interactive and has a nice wide variety of different educational games packaged up. Better yet it does a good job of building up some core libraries so that its very easy to write new games in Python very quickly. It may be targetted at a slightly lower learning level than you're looking for, but then again, it may not be. At the least it is certainly worth a loo

  • Reading (Score:2, Informative)

    by LACanyon ( 786267 )
    You should take a look at this software by Jerry Pournelle's wife. http://www.readingtlc.com/

  • 2 Cents (Score:4, Insightful)

    by defishguy ( 649645 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @07:13PM (#11672969) Journal
    I'm a high school teacher, and for the most part school districts in the state of Kentucky are required to help individual students that have disabilities in reading etc.

    Read and Write Gold [texthelp.com] is the app that is used most often to help students with reading disabilities.

    From my point of view though, I've seen the use of this technology actually lower testing scores when tests are given and the technology isn't used. This is compared to how the student would have done after several weeks of non-use.

    Software, and computers in general tend to cause mental dependency on the part of the learner. I have actually seen something that looks like withdrawl symptoms when the software isn't available to the student. It's scary. I used to spell words very well, but these days I find that I have to keep OpenOffice open all the time just for a real quick spell check! I'm thoroughly dependent on the technology.

    I whole heartedly agree with most of the closed captioning posts. Whatever you do please make sure that most of the work is done by your "student" and not technology. People are A LOT like pop corn, the only way to get the good stuff out of a kernel of corn is to apply heat, steam, and pressure.
  • Check one of the Pournelle links -- I think his lady developed something for reading disabilities. Read one of his columns and scan for an email link.
  • Foreign films with English sub-titles. I'm sure you know the genre he will enjoy. Many English language films have subtitles intended for the hard of hearing. They are useful too.

    Introduce him to IRC. That's what got my son 'over the hump'. Nobody gives a toss about speeling and gramer on IRC, so it's non-threatening but you have to be good enough to to make yourself understood. He'll get told soon enough by his peers if he's writing/talking complete gibberish. It might be possible to meld Festival into I

  • ... and almost *too* closely with the SPED department, I've noticed we use the programs Microtype 3.0 and Write Out Loud! (I think they are part of a single package) for kids who have developmental problems. Now, I believe this program is a bit pricey, because nothing in that department is cheap, but it seems to work. It says the words out loud with the kids while they type, and suggests spelling for words that they are having trouble completing, building vocabulary, spelling, and typing skills. I don't kno

  • Dyslexia & attitute (Score:3, Informative)

    by whitis ( 310873 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @08:41PM (#11673686) Homepage

    You didn't specify what kind of learning disability your brother had. The most common kind of disability that affects reading is Dyslexia. It could also cause problems with math since if you don't perceive the digits and symbols in the same order they appear on the page, you are going to have trouble with math. Dyslexia is itself a rather vague diagnosis.

    I can't really recommend specific software but I can share some observations from personal experience. Attitudes towards disability can make a huge difference. Expectations of failure can be self fulfilling prophacies.

    A friend of mine was diagnosed as Dyslexic when he was young. His parents were told by doctors that he would never learn to read. Fortunately, his parents did not listen. They spent time tutoring him and enrolled him in a special school. My friend not only reads better than the vast majority of the population, he is extremely well read and has a Ph. D. in astrophysics.

    I myself was diagnosed in high school as having dyslexia though that came as quite a surprise since I was reading at a 12th grade level in the 6th grade. When I was a kid, my mother read to me a lot.

    Another friend has dyslexia. His parents took the attitute of steering him away from activities that he would be likely to fail at. As a result, he is functionally illiterate but slowly making progress on his own. It may have helped that I was able to counter some of the defeatist non-sense.

    Your brother might benefit from using the English subtitles availible on most DVD players. As long as he tries to read them rather than just relying on the audio, the effect could be similar to being read to. He could choose content that was interesting to him. An interesting technological twist would be to modify an open source software DVD player such as Ogle to deliberately desynchronize the audio so the words would be spoken only after he had a chance to try and read them himself. Neurologically, being forced to make the attempt and then being corrected or reinforced immediately thereafter is important to the learning process. Of course, he may not be far enough along that he can follow the subtitles. He might be able to try to get the first word out of each subtitle, then work up to the first two words. It is important to be aware that sometimes the subtitles and the dialog do not match (subtitles having been copied from the script not transcribed from the actual performance) but they match often enough that if you take this into consideration it could be useful. Another variation would be to make the DVD player software automatically pause after each new subtitle is displayed.

    Similarly, text to speech can be integrated with applications such as instant messaging and slight modification would create a delay between presenting the written words and speaking them. Of course, he would need to be litterate enough to be able to write something back in the case of instant messaging unless he is just lurking in some chat rooms. In the latter case, logs could be used so he doesn't have to keep up with the frantic pace in many chat rooms.

    Dyslexic.com [dyslexic.com] has some information on technological aids for dyslexia. Hierarchical Program Tree [freshmeat.net] is a package listed at freshmeat that is intended for dyslexics. There is probably some more stuff out there.

    I think there is a lot of potential for educational software that is designed to take particular learning disabilities into consideration that may not have been realized yet. As an example, a dyslexic may be able to make out the individual letters in a word but have difficulty perceiving them in the order they appear. So, "tea" and "ate" might be hard to distinguish. A program could sort through the dictionary finding words that are different morphologies of the same letters and speak a word and present similar words as a multiple choice test. Educational softw

  • Is it enough to take a kids edutainment package and change the themes to be more suitable?

    That might not be all that difficult to do...especially with OpenSource packages such as the Tux4Kids stuff. You could probably find the kinds of 2D sprites they use all over the Internet and with a little tweaking in GIMP, change 'TuxTyping' to 'Naked Babes from Hell Typing'.

  • You don't want a "novel education idea" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by John Murdoch ( 102085 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @10:47PM (#11674503) Homepage Journal

    Hi!

    With respect and regard, you don't want a "novel education idea." You really want to focus on your brother's specific features, and try to find successful strategies that other people have used with similar disabilities. That's not a novel approach--and it doesn't involve any more technology than ordering a book or five from a good publisher's web site. [woodbinehouse.com]

    My youngest daughter has Down syndrome--and we've found that kids with Down syndrome learn to read in a radically different way than kids with, for example, ADHD. The strategies that work for the ADHD kids in the class probably won't be successful for Annie--the strategies that work for Annie won't do much for others in the class. That's part of the reason that--despite the best intentions in the world--special ed classes don't do as much for kids with disabilities as they should. They can't be everything to everyone.

    Here's where you come in.
    You have a major advantage over your brother's teachers: you do not have to be all things to all people. You already are his big brother--and he's your only student. Practically anything you do will succeed--to some extent. What you need to do is identify successful strategies to use with your brother--and learn a lot more about language and learning than you probably ever thought possible. While you learn about his particular disability and how to teach to him, you should also learn a LOT about English. You should learn about the "core" of 8000 Anglo-Saxon words that form the vast bulk of our daily conversation. You should learn the difference between the active and passive voices, the detailed specifics of each of the tenses, and you should learn how to identify reading materials that include the parts of language you want--and do not include the parts you don't. Focus on simple sentences of Anglo-Saxon words in the present tense and the active voice: I eat food. Sandy is my dog. I ride horses. You are my friend. I like you. My brother loves me.

    For an example of the kind of thing to avoid, look at any memo that comes home from the administration of your brother's (or your) school.

    What you'll need most...
    This will come as no surprise, right? The most important thing you'll need is patience. Applaud his successes--give genuine praise for genuine accomplishment. Give encouragement when he has trouble--and be critical when he blows you off. Be "real"--don't be yet another I'm-so-proud-of-you syncophant.

    And when he can read--know that you have probably done the most important thing you will do in your life.

  • NLP (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MicroBerto ( 91055 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @02:13AM (#11675315)
    I have no clue if this could work with mentally handicapped people, but I've been lately researching NLP - Neuro-Linguistic Programming. There's some great things in there about changing the way you use your brain and the way you behave.

    There's a lot of books that have been written on learning using NLP, but I've never read any of them so I would recommend googling for that. One big thing about reading and spelling is that it's important to do it visually, not auditorily. I'm sure there are things that can help a whole lot.

    As a sidenote, many slashdotters might like NLP. It was created/discovered by a mathematician/computer programmer turned psychologist, and is all about programming your brain. His name is Richard Bandler, I've so far read two of his seminar-based books, "Using Your Brain -- For a Change" and "Frogs Into Princes".

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