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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?"
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$Id: ceren.html,v 9.0 2004/08/01 16:01:34 ceren_rocks Exp $
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Important Stuff: Please try to pound cocks in anus. Try to suck other people's cocks instead of using anal beads. Read other people's bullshit before posting your own shit to avoid simply duplicating the mindnumbing drivel which has already been posted. Use a clear lube that highlights what this clusterfuck is about. Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments are preferred. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) If you want replies to your comments sent to you, consider killing yourself you fucking loser.
Important Stuff: Please try to pound cocks in anus. Try to suck other people's cocks instead of using anal beads. Read other people's bullshit before posting your own shit to avoid simply duplicating the mindnumbing drivel which has already been posted. Use a clear lube that highlights what this clusterfuck is about. Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments are preferred. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) If you want replies to your comments sent to you, consider killing yourself you fucking loser.
Important Stuff: Please try to pound cocks in anus. Try to suck other people's cocks instead of using anal beads. Read other people's bullshit before posting your own shit to avoid simply duplicating the mindnumbing drivel which has already been posted. Use a clear lube that highlights what this clusterfuck is about. Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments are preferred. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) If you want replies to your comments sent to you, consider killing yourself you fucking loser.
I learned to read and type as a kid with Nintendo Power magazine and Mario Teaches Typing.
"All it takes to fly is to hurl yourself at the ground... and miss." - Douglas Adams
what makes you think any amount of technology could help? computers can't work miracles. psychiatry ... might.
sorry if I sound blunt or trollish I'm serious.
for those fucktards? Just let natural selection take over.
Go ahead, FLAME AWAY.
After nearly a year of absence, from Slahdot, I return!
In my attempts to view this article's possible comments I recicieved a 404 error message. Seems like slashdot needs the special ed software....
Just kill him already :/
It's too bad Eugenics is such a taboo field of research nowadays.
If scientists did more work in this field, we wouldn't have people with mental handicaps anymore. Problem solved, no need for society to have to "deal with them".
That's just my opinion.
First test it on first citizan
Segway
I always thought that M$Win was cretaed for people with disabilites... You know, point and drool...
Have you considered exposing him to products from Computer Associates?
Oh wait, you want to expose him to software written for retards, not software written BY retards.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
I for one, welcome our new learning disabled overloards....
WH 2004
love is just extroverted narcissism
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.
Number Munchers. Nuff said.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
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.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
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...
What is a level 10 mental handicap?
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
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.
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.
Ignorance is bliss.
18 years old and barely literate. Perhaps you should teach him Perl.
I'd start with books, magazines, newspapers, or comics. The trick is to probably go with something he's interested in. Video game magazines might be a good bet.
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
As for natual selection post above:
Our society is rich - it can afford (and should) aford to help everybody, how wish to be helped
Freedom or George Bush
--This sig is in beta. Please let us know abut any errors you find.
Too late....he was inaugurated 4 years ago.
With a taser-belt to provide adaquate "motivation".
My niece was having a hard time learning her times tables, so I played 7-27 with her. The players closest to 7 and 27 split the pot. Each person gets one card, there's a round of betting, then every decides if they want another card, and the betting (we used almonds) continues after each round until no one wants another card. A little competition, and the lure of winning, fear of losing money tends to motivate.
Sounds like he needs a +5 Sword of Delinquency!
It's so simple!
I can't help you with software suggestions, but if you do decide to steal the software, note that legally you're on much safer ground stealing the CD from a store than downloading an illicit copy from a filesharing service.
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.
Nobodies Prefect
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Look for materials designed to teach English as a second language to adults. Might be something there you can use for help with reading/spelling/etc.
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
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.]
---
"Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins,
for they are subtle and quick to anger."
You need to find him a job where math, spelling, grammer, and long-term memory are not issues.
I hear there is an opening for Slashdot Editor
www.eFax.com are spammers
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.
For typing of the dead?
I have Attention Deficit Disorder. Over many years, I have learned how to control it with little to no medication. I struggled horribly in school because among other things I simply could not remember to bring my homework home with me. By the time I got to High School, my disorder had been diagnosed and after trying several medications we were able to find one that worked.
What would have helped *me* more than anything (aside from an earlier diagnosis) would have been a few very simple process changes. If I had been given a set of books to keep at home, and had a list of upcoming assignments been sent to my house, things would have been *much* easier for me.
Again if we can stop thinking about technology and medication as our magic solutions we might be able to help people learn more and over time be better able to manage their disorders. Note that there is a place for both computers and medication, but these need to be secondary to process and an attempt help the individual discover how to best manage the disorder.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
cool!, how many fireballs can he miscast?
Starts here http://gcompris.free.fr/ and works up, you may get here http://wims.unice.fr/wims/wims.cgi 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.
In other words, you have a little brother who is just like 70 percent of young Americans. He is exactly the kind of person who can be happiest in America's post-literate consumer culture. Why spoil things for him? Leave him be.
If you know someone retarded, the best thing to do is to sign them up for AOL service. It consolidates the retards into one section, and gives the rest of us a great way to filter out babble.
Kind of like the moderation system here.
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?
Considering that the original inquiry came from a guy with the moniker "GotSanity", is it any wonder that so many responses are trolls?
Trolls spawn trolls. Who's the careless editor who let the original troll article through in the first place?
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.
l essonview_en.htm, http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/jeather/maths/dicti onary.html, http://teachers.teach-nology.com/.
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/, http://www.internet4classrooms.com/index.htm, http://www.literacycenter.net/literacycenter_net/
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/ "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.
...and find out where they sent Dubya.
'HUKED ON FONIKS WERKED FER ME!'
'18 years old and barely literate. Perhaps you should teach him Perl.'
'Have you considered exposing him to products from Computer Associates? Oh wait, you want to expose him to software written for retards, not 'software written BY retards.'
Eugenics Is The Answer. It's too bad Eugenics is such a taboo field of research nowadays.'
'Why? Just kill him already
'I always thought that M$Win was cretaed for people with disabilites... You know, point and drool...'
'Why bother with technology for those fucktards? Just let natural selection take over.'
You dudes are harsh!
(But the CA line really was funny.)
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
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.
To order, surf to http://www.readingtlc.com/, it's about $200 per seat.
Luke, help me take this mask off
I agree with those who suggest finding out what he's interested in. At this point, he's not likely to learn to read unless he has real motivation to - and if he's getting along okay without it, he may not have much motivation. If he really feels like he's missing out by not being able to read, though (say, on extra gaming tips or a cool comic book or something), then he might be able to push himself a little harder. While I was working in a bookstore I talked to a guy who worked with at-risk high schoolers, most of whom could barely read and couldn't care less. He used manga to get them interested (he was ordering some "how to draw manga" books from us).
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
A while ago I wrote a very simple program that helped you read faster using something called Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (R.S.V.P., I swear. Google it.) and lots of other people have written similar.
This works by showing the words in a text one at a time, in a very large font, and in the center of the screen. Your eyes and brain recognize the words, and if you do this really quickly you can achieve high reading speeds.
My point is that this can also be used to read slowly. I gave a copy of the program i wrote to a man who was mostly blind and he used it to read text from the internet (slowly) quite well.
It might work well for your brother. The flashing of the words makes it a lot like a video game or watching tv, and the large size of the words make it much easier to read them.
If you're interested, check on the net for speedreading software (some will also speak the words aloud as they go) or email me for a copy of mine.
Take care,
~Simon
calroc at mindspring com
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.
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.
Gorkman
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 Gillingham is one style of tutoring for children with reading problems. Find them and get you brother some help.
Before he got sacked, now he's probably at a 15 or 16.
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 subject matter suitable enough to stimulate his mind and help him want to read more.
They're designed for people like him.
There are many kinds of learning disability. A good diagnosis by someone clueful is really important. We took our child to a many doctors and educators. The best results came from a guy (Fred Gore) who runs a school for learning disabled kids in Waterloo, Ontario. He pretty much called how the condition would progress. He also gave us things that we could do. The result is that my child now reads at a college level. (he is in college.)
For the math I strongly recommend the work of John Mighton. Check his web site: www.jumptutoring.org It's a volunteer organization and the site is a bit messed up right now but it's worth the effort. His methods are really effective.
GOOD educational software not only requires programming and multimedia skills, but a real understanding of the teaching methods, learning patterns, and other psychological aspects of education, not to mention mastery of the subject matter, and an ability to get inside the learners' heads and explain things clearly in a way that they will understand.
And that's before you start dealing with special educational software for learning disabilities or physical disabilities.
There's a world of difference between a program that quizzes you on your basic math, and a proper educational tool.
people learn at different speeds and it has little to do with psychiatry. At 12 I could build fairly advanced electronic projects, but I didn't learn to read until I was about 20.
And there are countless examples of people with much later adoption of literacy.
Since I grew up before personal computers were commonly available, there was no software for me to work with. What I had to do was copy books by hand until somehow the magic happened and I could read and write. That took time.
Much of what is difficult in becoming literate is getting your brain to convert meaningless symbols (letters) into ideas. For very visual people bridging this gap can be tremendously difficult. I mean we look at the word "Table" and we see a flat plane supported by four legs, not five scribbles or letters or even a word. That is a huge gap for brains to make.
That Zombie typing looks like it would have been perfect for me at age 12. Copying books by hand was hard work, typing games look like a lot more fun. If it was more visually oriented to what you are typing I bet it might be a bit more dull, but also more effective.
One computer game that really helped me, was a DOS game I was exposed to in Latin class. It was really simple, but you got instant feedback and scored points to rule the world by declining nouns and conjugating verbs. It was awesome.
As we go further and further into the digital world literacy will become less and less relevant. Look at how it is now, most adults can't read in our society by very basic metrics such as bus schedules let alone comprehending the simplistic grammatical constructions used in today's newspapers and magazines.
At the same time, literacy will remain as important as ever in deciphering the world and interacting in society. In many ways it appears as if we are regressing to a dark ages and society will be ruled by a power elite of literate priests -- these priests / scribes wo will be writing code and running computers.
A world like this would be aweful since without literacy, the common man would become much more violent and hostile unable to connect to others in any manner other than brutal.
-- To communicate is the beginning of understanding. -- AT&T
slashdot IS special ed software, for Nerdtards.
wake up and hold your nose
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/ This site has a ton of lessons, with handouts and materials all available for free. The lessons are designed to let you use dance, music, theater, and visual arts to teach lessons in various subjects to various age groups. Since you say he is doing everyday teenager things, you can try appealing to that to find a lesson that suits him well. It's not the most high tech of suggestions, but it is the tech that allows so much to be in one place.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
slackware has a great build of this nice educational package, but i am sure other distros carry it too...
I make the ReadSay PROnounce English 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 months, and (2) trying to sell it to a big educational software publisher.
How the above was modded up is beyond me.
If he wanted to write his own software, I don't think he would've asked the question, no?
He was diagnosed at an early age, and now you are looking for technological tools? I would expect that your brother's teachers, doctors, and social workers and your family's support groups would have suggested some tools to you by now if they thought they might be useful.
I have to agree with the majority of the other posters --
you haven't given us enough to go on, and
don't think that technology can solve every issue
Are you really expecting a better quality of answer from /. than from his existing support network? On the other hand, (and especially since we don't know the rest of the story) I suppose you should get some point for trying.
E.
I have looked at hundreds of different learning programs both proprietary and opensource and have found very little that I would term promising for reading disabilities. Granted, I might be a little biased... I have been teaching children to read for 15 years. We are currently working on a whole suite of applications for all students. Soon we will be looking for comments and maybe even assistance from the OS community. As for video games being able to help teach students... some people disagree but auditory/visual learning is by far one of the best ways to help children and older students learn to read. People can say what they like about it... but nearly 2 million kids a day use our programs in schools across the country and our results are incredible. The average teacher considers herself lucky if she can help a student raise their sight vocabulary and comprehension skills by 4 months in a school year. Our programs get 4-6 years growth in 90 days. So debate the video game approach as you wish... but the truth is it works and works amazingly well. Good luck with your brother... If I can be of any assistance... dont hesitate to email me. Let's not slashdot me please... lol my $4/month account would get cutoff.
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 am Dyslexic and a very bad speller as well. Back when I was in elementary school one teacher tried something that worked very well. I played games like kings quest and space quest, the old ones, before they used the mouse. I learned to spell all the words need in the game.
The second thing that helped me was books on tape. My parents went to the library and got me a book on tape and I would listen to it once or twice. Then I would read the book, sometimes with the tape sometimes with out. This helped me understand what the words should have been.
The last tool I used, and I came up with this one myself, is I started watching T.V. with the Closed Captioning on. I heard the words people said and saw them spelled out. Helped me a lot. I still suck at spelling, but I read very well.
The most important thing is to keep the person interested, and almost hide from them what they are learning. When I had to try a learn spelling by sounding things out or the other traditional methods, I shut down and it did not work, but when I had it intergraded into fun activates I was able to learn.
It's in the player's hand book, page 231. It's a mental/illusion type spell. It's pretty effective but you have to be at least level 22, and it sux against undead and lawyers.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Dude, i loved that game. On my Apple IIe i'd play it for ages as a kid.
It had these little different scenes after a level. And yeah. It was just COOL.
actually now that i think about it, i probably learned more and had more fun with my Apple IIe then any other computer. It was just simple and all the games we interesting/fun but also tied in good skills.
And for reading, it's been my experience that Boggle or Scrabble played loosely is a great tool. You just accept phonetic spellings at first, so that there are hardly any "wrong" words. As he progresses, you tighten up by first giving extra points for correct spelling, then insisting on it for words of a certain length or less, etc.
6. Audible Alarm (not shown)
-from a Cuisinart product owner's manual.
I don't know what level you're targetting, but I haven't seen any (high modded posts) mention GCompris 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 look.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
You should take a look at this software by Jerry Pournelle's wife. http://www.readingtlc.com/
Ask them, don't ask me - they won't even let me moderate anymore!
www.eFax.com are spammers
Total Fark.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
You need to set goals for your brother. Then when he has accomplished a reading or mathematics goal, give him a reward. At his age I would suggest taking him to a strip club and slip the stripper a 100 dollar note to take him into the backroom.
http://www.laureatelearning.com/
das
You deal five cards then with + - / * try to find a combination that totals to a card you then put down as the target.
I found my own variation of crypto that worked well with my girlfriend's two children, one 9 and one 13. I had to use all 5 of my cards, the 13 year old had to use 4 of her 5, and the 9 year old only had to use 3. After yelling Crypto and laying out your winning hand, we would then examine the loosing hands to find a combination that would have worked for them.
Letter To Iran
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 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.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Although I have never dealt with anyone who was diagnosed with a disability as severe(apologies if that is a frowned upon term) as your brother's, I have spent a great deal of time instructing people in various types of mathematics or in the general usage of computing technology.
Although the desire to use technology is always seen in the more technologically savvy you will most likely find that unless you are able to make a determination as to how your brother learns introducing technology will not help very much.
I don't seriously buy in to the argument that you should work more to cope with the disability and help your brother do the same, that is just accepting defeat before even beginning.
Finding out how your brother learns best should be your first task, perhaps he learns best when information is provided to him as if he already understands it, maybe he needs everything given to him step by step, maybe he needs more creative mnemonic devices. Find out if he is a visual learner, auditory learner, or even kinesthetic learner. You may find that creating a DDR type learning game(perhaps with a nintendo power pad interface) will aid him best at learning due to his ability to correlate concepts with physical motions.
If you can't find out the best way to get information into his mind no amount of technology will help you.
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
These are the resources that most people with LD use Book on Tape (http://www.rfbd.org/) to help with the reading, by reading along with the tapes, various text to speech programs and speech to text programs depending on the LD. As for helping in a work force, you might want to look at or talk to someone from (http://www.dwd.state.wi.us/dvr/) this is for WI but other states should have them. The person should learn about the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) (http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/fs-ada.html or http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/adahom1.htm).
The Alliance For Technology Access is a national organization made up of 50 or more Assistive Technology centers and dozens of vendors that assist people with disabilities. Although much of the technology is geared toward people with physical disabilities, there's quite a bit designed for people with mental and learning disabilities as well. Send an email to ATAInfo@ATAccess.org for more info.
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 IRC so that it talks.
Anybody know if that's been done already?
Finally get him to learn a craft so he can support himself without the need for complex written language.
These are the resources that most people with LD use Book on Tape (http://www.rfbd.org/) to help with the reading, by reading along with the tapes, various text to speech programs and speech to text programs depending on the LD. As for helping in a work force, you might want to look at or talk to someone from (http://www.dwd.state.wi.us/dvr/) this is for WI but other states should have them. The person should learn about the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) (http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/fs-ada.html or http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/adahom1.htm).
niggers
"are often far to expensive"
I'm sure you meant "too", maybe you can find something to help your english at the same time.
I understand math and can do higher math just fine. What I cannot do is basic arithmetic. There is no treatment. My psychologist recommemed I carry a calculator everywhere I go.
Like everyone else here I am of above average intelligence, I can read/write well, have an analytical mind, and am usually considered to be the smart guy (read nerd) in the room. I just can't add, subtract, multiply, or divide. So I use a TI-30XIIS to get by.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
Take a look at the Audiblox website http://www.audiblox.com/ . They have a program that's about the same price as "hooked on phonics" using just plain old colored blocks. They use various exercises to teach sequencing, foreground/background recognition, left/right, counting, etc. These skills that are taught are all must be mastered before it is possible to read and/or do math. Most kids master them automatically, but some require special exercises like these to master the skills. You are supposed to do it for 1 hour per day, in cases of a severe problem. It requires one-on-one human coaching, though some of it could probably be computer automated. I'm currently using it with my mildly dyslexic son, but haven't been using it long enough (only a few days) to see any progress. Some of their case studies are amazing, but as always, YMMV.
Find a level 11 cleric that knows Dispel Handicap.
I know I got almost all my knowledge of hiragana/katakana by judicious study of this anime-based site...
You are exactly right about managing add and managing the psychological disorders. I too went through a similar process and found that it really works without medication.
However, individuals with add usually have a higher 'mental capacity' and managing yourself isnt always easy. It really is easier said than done, in this situation. For example, if you're trying to implement the same solution with a 10yr old, it's almost impossible. Why? because they simply havent reach a mental maturity to understand. (WHen looking around some 'Adults' havent either in this world) So im just saying that it's 100% right but not easy to implement.
... 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 know how "fun" it is, because the most I've had to do with it is make it work in a multiuser environment (no fun), but the teachers seem to like it.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
I think maybe I was misunderstood.
What would have helped me most when I was ten would have been a support structure to help reduce the impact of some of the most disabling manifestation of the disorder. I was always told I was lazy and shoudl work harder. This is not what I am saying. Instead, if someone has trouble with a process, people should work together to help mitigate this on a case by case basis.
Also, I am not sure that it is that a 10 year old lacks the mental capacity, but rather that learning to manage the disorder takes many years in some cases. Additionally, a school environment does not often offer sufficient flexibility to allow someone to really manage the disorder.
For example, I avoid waking up early. This is something that I could not do when I was in High School.
However, contrast this to the attitude today which is way to prevelang and says that people with learning disabilities should not be held to the same academic standards. Or that medication is a magic answer. Yes, medication helped me and very occasionally I have to take it still.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
It's highly rated, highly successful by all reports, and might be just the ticket. By all means contact the proprietors of Reading TLC and give them more information about your brother. If they think that the program is not going to be appropriate for him, they won't try to sell it to you anyway. That's a breath of fresh air in and of itself.
http://www.readingtlc.com/
Best of luck!
What have you been doing the past 8 years? Sad to hear about your brothers' disability, but I think that maybe, you might have addressed this issue 5,6, 7, or 8 years ago. Did he go to school? Most school districts have special education, and when that fails, they have funding to bring in expert help from elsewhere. And when that fails, they can send them off to a special school. I put in 6 months' internship at one of these schools, setting up OCR systems to scan books into Braille and/or just scan them into a computer.
Have you come to grips with the possibility that your brother might not be able to read? That there's no help available for his condition?
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 has some information on technological aids for dyslexia. Hierarchical Program Tree 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'.
www.sjbaker.org
I do this kind of assessment work for a living, and I'd suggest 2 things: 1. chase after the psychologist who did this assessment in the first place and ask for follow-up on intervention strategies and don't stop until he/she gives you clear direction based on the assessed results, or until they tell you they "don't know". 2. chase after the school (if he's still there) and insist on clear, consistent and active intervention based on the assessment results Paul
---------- Dr. J
This may seem counterintuitive, but I believe the best way to learn to read is by reading. Grab a book... a good story, from a genre he'd like... and read it with him. Let him do the reading and help him when he gets stuck. But let the story do the teaching. Then read another one together. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Why Vegan? No other food choice has a farther-reaching and more profoundly positive impact on all of life on Earth.
Reading is passive; writing is active. Typing is not as active as hand-printing or arranging alphabet blocks or some equivalent into words.
...
...'. In each session, concentrate on one or two phonic patterns like 'b?t'.
Can your brother dictate to you? If so, have him give you the first word. Spell it for him, so he can write it down. Then do the second word, and so on.
What would he like you to read to him? Comics, Westerns, SciFi, magazines,
After reading a paragraph, help him sound out one of the short words. 'a I no it at bet bit but
Some people learn better by writing, some by reading. Most need some of both.
This is tedious, but it works. I taught three girls and one grandson this way, and I am working on another.
Anything new that is a struggle comes a lot easier if there's a reward associated with it, and the sooner the better. This is just a for instance, just look at the basic premise: does he like cartoons, that sort of thing, perhaps of his video game characters maybe? Tell him if he can draw a cartoon and insert the dialog, that you will publish it up on the WWW where he and all his friends can see it. Easy enough to do and a neat incentive for him to put forth a scosh more effort voluntarily. That's the key, learning cannot be easily forced, but it can be a lot easier accomplished if you *want* to learn. Any subject.
That might not be an exact premise to implement, but just follow that frame of thought, based on his strengths and interests right now.
The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential have a long history of working with brain-injured children. Results have been remarkable.
"The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates." - Tacitus
Back in the early 1980 I created a system DUS - COMCat. It was a CAI (Computer Aided Instruction) together with some other people. We had for years used a similar system of our own to teach DDS students anatomy. A boring phonebook like subject.
However - the results were remarkable. From the usual 60-65% passing number of students to 93-97%. And the impressive thing was that the students liked it too.
We started a 5 year study which ended with the conclusion that specific groups of people responded better than avarage to computer aided instruction.
Amongst those were handicapped and adults. Both groups share some similar traits. They are both very afraid to appear dumm and they both feel that participating in a regular educational situation warrents that they are just that.
The computer offers a number of advantages over the regular education situation. It is like a book. Today you don't question that books are necessary in a school, but once long ago some teachers would have felt that books were inappropriate just as when the over-head projector and the copy machine were introduced.
Computers have their application
Amazingly few schools use this to their advantage in todays schools. What the computer brings to the table is a to-way communication and an unheard level of privacy. Something that improves the learning of especially the two before mentioned groups. I myself have used it countless times including when my kids had boring subjects like spanish, detail kowledge subjects like science (microbiology) and now anatomy.
In all cases I have been able to help them achieve another letter grade.
There are of course more issues here. So many more that canvassing them would take much too long time. But what remains is to say that it was all proven long ago to work. Even (and especially) with people who can't read or write. Using a touch screen or a light pen or any other means of input which the person in question will understand is not a problem other than technical. And the results are amazing.
I'm a cynical bastard regarding myself and everyone else. People tend to derive entertainment from it for some reason. Beats me.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
As far as learning writing is concerned I find that spell check is the most useful tool for me. I am also someone that suffers from learning disabilities, I have dyslexia pretty bad. I'll type something into Word or OO.o and ill see the red line than ill see exactly how I spelled it wrong and how exactly its spelled right, than just the force the lessen, ill manually correct the mistake. This method has improved my spelling more than any other method even years of tutoring.
It assumes that the human race is competent to command its own destiny: definitely not something I've often seen demonstrated.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
We're only asking people to stop procreating to preserve the natural resources for us to enjoy them, too.
I almost feel bad about saying that, but you were so obviously walking right into it that I figured someone would eventually anyhow.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
If your brother enjoys gaming, he'll dig dasher. It's mouse controled, assembles words on the fly based on login and can create odd song lyrics automatically check it out
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.
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.
I would recommend songs. Get some catchy songs, and let him memorize the lyrics. After he knows the song and the words, then sit down and try to see fi he can figure out which words are what. I was able to do this and learn to read from Chrono Trigger and Megaman X for the SNES, because I was always nagging to have someone read it to me, i eventually knew what they said, and even though I couldn't read it, I knew word for word what they said. So for instance, they'd say
"Darn, you beat me."
I'd know that they said that, but I wouldn't be able to read it. So after some basic education, I looked at the words, that I knew but couldn't read, and deciphered them. Y-O-U... so that's how you spell you..., like that
Reward the person with the most addictive substance you can find. You'll be surprised as to what a person suffering from withdrawl can do.
I have CP (Cerebral Palsy), and friends with CP, as well as a sister who is very similar to what you described. I'll have my father post as well but:
1. Have the school teach him how to read one-on-one through the educational plan (IEP)--they are required to educate any person until age 21.
2. Use ESL books of popular stories or Sparknotes.
3. There are some really good thought-provoking stories written for the third-fifth grade level. I know he is not there yet--get him there.
There is software such as Kurzweil 3000 or WYNN that are reading aids.. that will speak text, highlight text, and have a built-in dictionary. (the dictionary talks too.)
There are also children's dictionaries on CD-ROM.
Ultimately, you need to look at electronic books in general, and audio books. Get him interested in the material, and give him the motivation neccessary to succeed.
Bookshare.org is an organization that provides an e-book sharing service for disabled people, legal under U.S copyright law. This service works with the Kurzweil 3000 software I suggested earlier.
But the ultimate thing that worked for my sister was Instant Messaging. She had to learn how to decipher acronyms, which also gave her the feeling of fitting in. She figured out tenses and complex sentences, from barely reading at all.
Do NOT get frustrated with him. Your mileage may vary. He may not even be interested in IM. But if you can get him to have a screenname and get his buddies to write him as they normally would any other person, he will learn by immersion and things will improve.
--Sam
P.S One more note: Do not prevent him from using materials that are "too young" for him. It is sometimes neccessary, and if he can realize that *on his own* so much the better.
Personal attention can do much better than a computer program, imho. If at all possible, though, I believe the most important way for people with disabilities to adapt to society is for them to be exposed to society. We are all imitative, adaptive creatures, and in my experience people with disabilities will very often rise to the occasion if they have "normal" interactions with "normal" people as often as possible.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
First, I'd like to say that I am sorry your brother has to got through something like this. There are many ways other than just technology to help him out though I must stress that 18 is a bit too late to start. Neverthless, you can give it an honest try.
Parallel development theory: The development of mentally handicapped children can initially be regarded in parallel with young able-bodied children. This comparison makes it easier to react to the child's situation with understanding and sensitivity, at the same time as dispelling the impression that the child is abnormal. As the child gets older, however, the comparison becomes much more tenuous. This is because,
1. Development in various areas stops before it is complete, 2. Outsiders expect the child to exhibit a certain level of ability in accordance with age and size, 3. Behavioural disorders often occur, and 4. Interests and needs develop in accordance with age.
Mentally handicapped young people and adults can no longer be compared with children since this way of regarding them denies them the rights and needs appropriate to their age.
Cognitive development, language development: A striking feature of learning difficulties is restricted cognitive development. This is linked with limited perception and, above all, with limited language ability since both functions require a great deal of cognitive skills. Mentally handicapped children often start to talk late, if at all. The phase of language acquisition is also drawn out and these children have difficulties learning the meaning of words and grammatical rules, quite apart from limitations to their language and communication skills which depend rather on learning from their social environment.
Learning by doing: Mentally handicapped children and young people have to rely on opportunities for learning by doing, both in the initial and later stages of their development. This has an effect on what they learn, how they go about their tasks, how quickly and how long it takes them to learn, their ability to think in abstract terms, and on their spontaneity and range of interests. Learning by doing develops cognitive abilities in particular, but its success depends on the child being able to recognise the overall result of an activity and being aware of the individual stages of the activity, especially in the area of technical skills. To achieve this, the stages in the execution of an activity must not only be carefully planned, but they must also be discussed and, if necessary, changed, both during execution and afterwards. This also applies to the social aspects of the work. Spontaneous and specific cooperation cannot be expected in every case.
There are many Vocational schools that deal specifically with children like these. They have accurate scientific methods of teaching and making these kids learn. You may contact your local authorities or search the web for such a school in your area.
You mentioned that he likes music. Has he ever tried singing or playing an instrument? Learning to play music is not only fun and personally satisfying, but it promotes motor skills (with instruments), pattern recognition, arithmetic, cooperation (in ensembles), and much more. I'm pretty sure I learned to read English before I learned to read music as a child, but I think it might have been easier the other way around. Don't feel like reading music is a necessity, though; many outstanding musicians never learned to read, and that's just fine in some circles.
If you're really serious about this, you should check out the software from Scientific Learning. One area where they've been very successful is with helping children with dyslexia and other special needs.
/ main=home/rl/
Here's a relevant link:
http://www.scilearn.com/results/student/specialed
Pretty interesting company, actually... educational software based on brain research on how people *actually* learn.
Get yourself a copy of the book reading Reflex, and work through it with your brother.
Unlike Phonics schemes, which require the ability to apply nested rule-based deductions, or 'whole words' methods, which expect the learner to derive everything themselves, this works by teaching the correspondence between sounds and symbols in a way that suits the brain's natural pattern matching.
has several games based on typing... Like Typer Shark- http://games.yahoo.com/games/downloads/tps.html
There are probably many others (PopCap or not) online that might be useful.
No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
www.the-underdogs.org
They have all the older educational games that you can't hardly find anymore.
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".
Berto
Have you tried comic books? The language in them is usually pretty simple, and having pictures might help his understanding of the text.
I have a friend who is "mentally handicapped" to the point where he can't read or write at the age of 24. I've been testing the method of ridicule and public embarrassment in order to stimulate the motivation needed to learn which, have been fairly unsuccessful. So far in the past 3 years of testing, he has attempted the exercises of trying to get people to read books to him, attempting to learn french by listening to audio tapes, and self loathing. None of these attempts which he's tried have been successful, so I would say my experiment is failing... but on the other hand its REALLY funny so I think I'll continue with the experiment and see what happens.
The poster should have known the storm this would unleash.
That Li'l Brudder. He's got the heart of a champion.
You can make it Li'l Brudder. You just keep twisting along.
I don't normally post here, but I came across this thread and thought I should comment.
When I was younger, I had severe problems with learning disabilities, specifically dyslexia and what they now call ADHD. It made school extremely difficult for me for most of my life, requiring special teachers and special testing. Finally, my grandmother (an English professor) got, for lack of any better way to put it, fed up with the incompetent job the school system was doing and over one summer decided to take matters into her own hands. She started out by reading books to me (specifically the Iliad and the Odyssey) to show me how cool reading could be, and then once I was hooked, started encouraging me to read on my own, in a very supportive atmosphere where I never felt ashamed to ask what a word was, or how to pronounce it. She would encourage me to read anything I wanted, and made it clear to me that she would give me as much money as wanted, as long ass it all got spent on books. After I read a book, we would sit and talk about it, and she would help me with anything I didn't understand as I went through it. By the end of the summer, I could read an entire paperback in a day, and a few years later of daily reading I could get through as many as three pulp novels on a lazy weekend day. I think the main trick to helping someone with a learning disability learn to read, is just making sure they don't feel stupid, and getting them interested in reading. This is mainly just an issue of figuring out their interests, and making sure you have the time to answer their questions without any trace of annoyance. I do agree with what a few people have said here that consol RPGs could be a great way for a person to learn to read, since you can usually set the scroll speed of the text, and most of them will not advance the text until you hit a button, giving the person plenty of time to ask for help if needed.
Now, being able to read wasn't the solution to all my problems however. I still had atrocious handwriting, and there didn't seem to be anything that would fix that. In fact, I had several classes where I got bad grades simply because the teacher couldn't read my writing. All of this was of course before computers were a commonplace fixture of schools. So now we get to the crux of your question: How can technology help?
Well, one thing that helps me on a daily basis, is my Palm PDA. Amazingly enough, the block letters used by the writing recognition of my Pal are a lot easier for me to reproduce than normal writing. I just write everything in my Palm, and then print it out. That way, I never have to deal with my bad handwriting. If I were still in school, this would be a godsend! I could take notes, write papers, and all without anyone ever seeing my handwriting, then I could just dump it to a computer and print it out when I needed to turn anything in. Another great thing about a Palm, is that unlike a computer you can take it everywhere with you, so if you are also ADHD like me, you can make notes or even automated reminders, to yourself to remind you of things without the embarrassment of worrying about someone seeing your note and asking why it is written on your hand or something. Besides, from a societal position, an 18 year-old with a note stuck on his jacket reminding him not to forget it, is considered stupid, however an 18 year-old with their entire day planned out in a PDA complete with reminders is considered an over-achiever who takes their time seriously. For a struggling teen, the latter is a much better position to be in than the former.
Another godsend for someone with dyslexia is a program with a spellchecker. All word processors have them these days, and most email programs do too. You can even get them for a Palm! Most people don't realize it, but when you have dyslexia, it is very hard to tell if you have misspelled a word or not. Most people take this for granted, and think that spelling is just about remembering how a letter is spelled, but it is really more about visually recogniz
Our program, eLocutor (download from http://www.holisticit.com/eLocutor/elocutorv3.htm) is a typing assistant for persons with severe motor disabilities. As such, it places no burden on the user in terms of learning to type as such. Functional operations can be run off using the mouse button only. With a little practice, your brother can watch words being created for him, referenced from the inbuilt dictionary. It installs and runs on Windows only.
However, it was not designed for persons with learning disabilities either. Frankly, we do not know, nor have we researched, whether it serves a useful purpose here.
If your brother takes to it, please do let us know. With very little effort, the dictionary can be modified (and it learns, too) to downsize it (it was set up with 250,000 words, which few people actually use, plus a specialised physics/cosmology section). Doing this will speed up the word retrieval function, of course, though this may not even be a requirement for your brother.
Finally, by installing a text-to-speech app like Festival (which others here have suggested too) the screen will read back whatever is typed, which may assist your brother to learn to associate the words on the screen with the spoken word.
Hope this is useful to you.
Rather than tackle the problems of reading and maths head on, encourage your brother to learn the skills that will help him to learn. Disabilities like dylexia have strong connection to poorly developed cerebellum and vestibular systems. By training up the physical co-ordiation the more able to cope the eye tracking and mental agility need to read. For more information have a look here.
Old fashioned games of running around and catching balls are also very good at training the cerebellum and vestibular system. I'f a normal ball is too fast or difficult to catch then look into Plusballs . (Review ).
You may also want to consider singing lessons. There is anecdotal evidence that singing helps the brain's langauge skills develop. Research has found it can raise the IQ as well. Check out SingStar for the PS2. Your brother will need help with reading the lyrics but a cheap and fun way to learn.
Declaration of interest: I run Myomancy.com.
Chris
Why would anybody want to learn disabilities?
You said he had learned a bit from "Typing of the Dead", so i thought the game "Dungeon Scroll" might help.
In the game you are given some letters, from which you make as many words as possible (a bit like scrabble, without the crossword-ness) and a lot of powerups to help you beat monsters and progress through an increasingly difficult dungeon. There is a "kid mode" that makes everything a lot easier, so it might fit your brother perfectly. It really helps you to increase your vocabulary and learn to spell.
This might sound like advertising, but it would be my best bet for educational games.
There has been some interesting research on learning done in Dr. Pepperberg's lab. The odd aspect of it is that they are tackeling the learning issue by studing how African Grey Parrots learn. The Home Page is a place to start looking for information and think about teaching. Another example of how well these particular birds can hear and respond is here, and finally, there was an article in the SF Chronicle that discussed how intelligent the birds might be here. While I am tooting the horn for birds, we should also consider how they learn, because it is different that "normal" human patterns. This could be quite useful for learning disabilities when the normal avenues do not work.
I work in the area of Assistive Technology. Without knowing more about what difficulties your brother has, it's hard to make a recommendation.
However there are two pieces of software that could be useful.
The first is called Read and Write by a company called Texthelp (www.texthelp.com). This can allow whatever is typed into the computer to be read back. It has a spellchecker, dictionary and thesaurus built in as well. Being able to hear what he has typed may assist your brother in making the connections between spoken and written words.
The second is a reading pen, made by quicktionary.You can scan words in from a book, and the pen will read them back to you. I would recommend trying this out before you buy it, as it definitely doesn't suit everyone.
Given the nature of your brother's disability, it may be worth your while arranging for an AT assessment for him, as like I said, it's hard to give advice without having met him or knowing what he can't do.
All the best,
Hugh
from www.eyeQ.tv you can access a demo that emphasizes occular muscle training and right to left brain binding. Some learning disabilities are symbolic association or magnatude recognition, this may help.
In my experience, some disabilities are based on lack of social connection or excessive compulsive addiction. Thus, increasing intimate contact, emphasizing social relavance of behavior or reducing repetative behavior may be indicated. This may suggest the computer based tools are inappropriate and should be avoided.
On the other hand, some cases of general disability may find special affinities of specific behaviors or talents. Encouraging the such a talent or affinity may lead to enhanced self-confidence, development and independance. These issues are most personal in nature and require expert evaluation, it is unlikely that varience can be narrowed to produce suitable software.
Nevertheless, opertuinities abound. Any individual who can develop a sense of confidence can advance to management. No serious learning impediment need stand as a significant barrier, providing the individual can pronounce the appropriate buzzwords. If you can collect the 'jargon de jeur' of the business world, it should be simple to construct a program that provides a phonme translation to acustical speech and monitors near accurate repeatition.
While I wouldn't discourage a tech support approach, you might want to try an old technique that takes 15 minutes a day. Its called "neurological impress" and my experience suggests it works well with older persons (like your brother) who have a long experience of frustration with learning to read. Go to http://literacy.kent.edu/eureka/strategies/fluency _activities.pdf for a brief overview. At 15 minutes a day, you'll know in 3 months if its going to work, and you can use material he enjoys instead of kiddee crap. Search for the name as well for more info.
Wow, this certainly has inspired a storm of replies. I greatly apprectiate the responses and emails I have recieved and the great suggestions you have all given me. What I wanted out of this story was to see what different options I may have to help my family to work with my brother. For a little more information:
He is 18, and has had a hard time learning in school. His exact diagnosis is not known to me but I do know that the state of Oregon has him listed as severely handicapped. From an early age he has regularily beaten me at every video game we have ever played. He is currently very interested in video games (primarily Xbox Live and Computer games) and definatly enjoys games involving cars (like Need for Speed Underground 2 and Street Racing Syndicate). I know personaly that his handicap can be overcome (because I have watched him repetedly learn new words through his video games). One of the largest problems he is currently facing is that his school has been doing nothing but stifling his ability to learn. They have repetedly withdrew him from social interactions, only taught him life skills (things like cooking and cleaning and personal grooming) and in essence is trying to just float him through school. He is mostly like a normal teenager. He speaks fluently. Likes movies, video games, and sports. His only drawbacks in life is his ability to read, do math, and his lack of social interactions. If any of you want to continue to help past (or still need more information) this I encourage you to please email me (gotsanity AT gotsanity DOT net) or visit my website and drop me a line on the forums. Honestly to tell you the truth I was quite suprised that slashdot actually posted the article and I am very apreciative that they did.
Thank you for the help.
One of the BEST tools to help with learning dificulty, memory, conceptual understanding and the like is the 'mindmap'. (Example: http://www.buzan.org/_metacanvas/attach_handler.uh tml?attach_id=107&content_type=image/png).
t ml
Designed by Tony Buzan in the 1970's he based its design on research he did into how the brain and neurons worked and from this derived a 'note taking' technique that has massive implications on the ways we can learn, and I beleive should be taught in all schools (take up rate so far has been gradual but slow depending where u live).
Books on how to mindmap & other books by Tony BUZAN can be obtained from most bookstores.
From the buzan.com website:
"People have always told me that I am learning disabled, but in fact I've been learning deprived!"
"I wish I had been taught how to do this stuff before everything else. Now I feel as though I can learn anything!"
Check out the official site for basics on actually what to do, and chk out the gallery to get an idea what it's all about.
http://www.buzan.org/EN/mindmaps/how_to.h
.. but honestly, have you bothered to contact any of the software vendors of other learning titles to see if they had any other titles that fit his needs?
I have a quick question: Has your brother been in LD programs and school and after school for awhile now? Have they had absolutely no success in helping him learn basic math/numbers or reading? If so, and I really hate to say this, it may be impossible for him to ever learn. I have a friend who can't write. Period. Information goes in but can't go out, at least on paper. It sucks, but it is never going to change because her brain just isn't made to write. She holds a job and has lots of friends, but she is limited in what postitions she can hold.
At this point if your brother hasn't grasped numbers and words in years of school, I doubt software will be the key. I would get him into another school-type program or start thinking of jobs or activities he can do now to boost his confidence.
Hope this isn't construed as offensive, just trying to be realistic.
There is a company in San Antonio called PCI education that specializes in producing materials for children like your brother
Hope this doesn't sound too much like an ad. I work for a company that produces software for people who have trouble reading. Mostly aimed at learning disabilites, but also people who don't have English as a first language, etc. We use a database of symbols (around 6,000) matched up to English words (about 23,000). The symbols are constructed with a consistent language structure, and are widely used in the UK. We've produced a bunch of software tools that use them. From writing tools (click on the symbols in order to write a sentence) to a desktop publisher. I've been concentrating on internet stuff, and we're just about to release a web browser that displays web pages with symbols, too. We also produced an email client. The good thing about the web browser, is that up 'till now, most existing symbol content is aimed at younger with people. Using a browser you can try approaching reading with a variety of different, more grown-up subject materials. I shan't post a link, but if you're intereted you can google on "symbol web browser".
"Pokey, are you drunk on love?" "Yes. Also whiskey. But mostly love... and whiskey."
"and are often far to expensive"
Mayhaps you should seek out some software for yourself...
Some of the work at Project LISTEN may come in handy too. Many of their publications are available for download.
Some of the work at Project LISTEN may come in handy too. Many of their publications are available for download.
I'm bipolar. Used to be that when a "Manic Phase" occurred, there was nothing I could do. A manic phase is a hyperactivity that metabolizes the brain of the brain chemical energy needed for thought, so usually after a manic phase there comes a period of low activity and sometimes accompanied by severe depression. While this isn't your brother's particular issue, it would help you to understand a little about how a speeding brain activity can waste the chemicals. Children today are being born into a very fast paced place. They "pick up" on that while young, and I think more or less ASSUME they're expected to act that way also. So their brain tries to race before they learn to read, skipping over the slow stuff and graduating to the quicker, more interesting material. What has happened to your brother may in fact be what is happening to a majority of young American kids today. They're wanting to enter a bodybuilding contest without first enduring the drudge of body building. It sounds like your brother needs to be introduced to some slower activities that will help him find his balance. And I would also advise a really good nutritional supplement or two. http://strongheart.amsonline.com/ is my site and there are plenty of others. I also purchase a really fantastic natural product called Oxy-Nectar sold on http://www.vitaglo.com/ . It has powdered carrots, spinach, Chinese celery and both chlorella AND chlorophyll. These natural ingredients will aid his concentration, both from the antioxidants and the extra oxygen. Also for you, if you take Oxy-Nectar and Ibuprofen they combine to dry up cancers. They restrict blood to cancers. They dry up and die quickly. I wrote a short webpage about this: http://www.newpath4.com/thecancercurefromnewpath4c urecancer.htm . Researchers recently discovered that colon cancers can be slowed and stopped with a med that dries them up, but the Ibuprofen & Oxy-Nectar does it for the entire body. AMS products combined with Oxy-Nectar and Wheat Germ Oil (joint lubrication) is the best regimen I have found. Oh, and the Manic Phasing? I stopped that 2 years ago by simply telling it to stop just as the sequence began.
Reading and learning with "manipulatives" is the best way to do something. Want to teach math? Teach carpentry. Or sewing. Or just about anything that involves metrics.
Human beings learn through experience. The problem with "computer learning" is that the experiences are always finite (limited by the imagination and production effort of the programmers and dsigners). Nature is infinite. Go outside and learn some stuff.
Best of luck.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
It's free, downloadable from the web. It's not for learning per se, but more for personal management strategies, and learning, coping, organizational and behavioral techniques. First and Second Step KidTools, and First and Second Step KidSkills are for elementary and middle school children. The sofware prompts are read for children with reduced literacy, by children, so it's a very comfortable environment. Our new package to be released soon is StrategyTools for older children to learn the same techniques, with a focus also on life skills, vocational goals, and the like. The website with the downloads is http://KidTools.missouri.edu/ StrategyTools will eventually be available for download from http://StrategyTools.org/ Enjoy. It has experienced some great success in classrooms nationwide. Or rather, the children have.
SDU a university in Denmark have started the VISL project.
It is an online system making it possible to learn linguistic skills in a multitude of languages, including English, from as I understand it a basic level to more advanced levels.
They even have a standalone CD with the online material for those "on a meter" while online.
The url is:
http://visl.sdu.dk/
I believe anyone interested in edutainment software will find the above mentioned university project of interest.
Best Regards
Einar Petersen
http://globability.org
A very good program for special needs learners.
However, it is now owned by Riverdeep and they are one of the suckiest companies ever, so if you can get a free copy, don't feel bad about it.
You Can Have One, Too!