1. Dr Abi James Product Manager iANSYST Ltd
How Can Technology Be Used To Help Students With Dyscalculia And Dyslexia Overcome Their Difficulties?  
Dr Abi James
Product Manager
iANSYST Ltd

2. Introduction Why use technology What is the problem?
Reading and writing skills still needed in maths subjects
Technology is available & widely used in other areas
Technology should save time and remove in-authentic labour
What is the problem?
Current technology solution not developed to cope with scientific notation
Existing solutions may need to be adapted or used taking a different approach
Technology should save time and remove inauthentic labour
should in the important thing here. It doesn't always when it comes to science subjects. Therefore using basic tools becomes a problem.

3. Problems experienced by dyslexic students
Problems experienced in mathematical subjects
Problems experienced by dyscalculic students

4. Problems experienced by students
Using technology to help with reports, assignments & exams
subject specific words will not be accepted by spell checkers
difficult to proof read scientific notation
speech recognition and concept mapping can help some students
Student's issues
- students have to learn to recognise a much wider range of symbols.
- sequence is important both in interpreting and correctly writing notation (e.g. putting a - sign in the power component instead in front of the numerator)
- at HE students are expecting to pick and use this new language without any help. Newer get a course in the Greek alphabet....

5. Problems experienced by students
Note taking during lectures or seminars
Difficulties with accuracy and speed
Limited technology to help with taking down scientific notation quickly and accurately
Non-medical helpers for note taking rarely have a scientific background
Unable to use audio recordings to back up notes
Student's issues
- students have to learn to recognise a much wider range of symbols.
- sequence is important both in interpreting and correctly writing notation (e.g. putting a - sign in the power component instead in front of the numerator)
- at HE students are expecting to pick and use this new language without any help. Newer get a course in the Greek alphabet....

6. Technology solutions: Subject specific Spell Checkers
Spellex adds subject specific terminology into MS Word’s spell checker (£82 + VAT for a single user).
UK versions available for medical, pharmaceutical, legal, biotech, botanical, technical, geographical
Various medical dictionaries available (e.g. Brody’s) but many are American.

7. Technology solutions: Word Prediction, Banks & Text Expansion
Word prediction can quickly learn terminology and phrases to be reproduced when needed.
Read & Write and Penfriend also
include text expansion tools
Words banks (Wordbar) can used to quickly enter phrases or keystrokes.

8. Technology solutions: OCR Software
OCR software is needed to convert scanned in images to editable text.
Packages can not convert equations into editable/readable text – they remain as images.
Abbyy FineReader can recognise some programming languages

9. Technology solutions: Text-to-speech
Speech engines will attempt to pronounce terminology using phonetic rules
Can not read-back equations represented as images or in PDF files
Limited read back of Equations - MathML & Math Player with Read & Write
Equations need to be read-out non-linearly. So although simple equations and expressions may be read aloud e.g. x+y=z, anything more complicated will have problems.

10. Technology solutions: Talking calculators
Read & Write Gold and ClaroRead provide speech-enabled software-based calculators
Handheld talking calculators are available but expensive : £200+
Designed for visually impaired

11. Technology solutions: Speech Recognition
MathTalk with Dragon NaturallySpeaking enables scientific notation to be dictated.
Good for writing reports but not note taking
User needs to be fluent in terminology and symbols
Suits auditory learners and disadvantages visual learners
MathTalk demos

12. Technology solutions: Concept mapping
Used to explain concept and plan reports or projects.
Good for overcoming sequencing & organisation difficulties
Inspiration includes basic maths symbols but aimed a secondary level.
More advanced drawing packages can provide equation builders but more difficult to make maps –
SmartDraw; Visio

13. Lagrangian Equation example in Inspiration

15. Quicklink Pen Elite & SuperPen Professional
Scan a word or line of text and hear it.
See the definition of the word.
QL Elite
Transfer text and images to PC
SuperPen Professional:
Comes with dictionaries covering medicine, finance, computing, geography, science & a thesaurus.

16. New solutions for note-taking: Digital Pen
IO Pen saves an image of pages written in a special notebook to a PC.
Can use handwriting recognition but problems with:
Spelling errors
Terminology & equations
But could be used be a note-taker or for saving notes as an image.

17. New solutions for note-taking: Graphics Tablet
A graphics tablet can be used to enter diagrams or equations graphically alongside a PC.
But requires good co-ordination skills.
Still slower than writing by hand

18. New solutions for note-taking: Adapted word banks
Project to develop a method of creating equations quickly in Word by
Developing word banks to control the equation editor or maths word processor
Provide shortcut to symbol tools within Word.

19. Question & Answer session
What solutions are you using with your students?
What works?
What do your students need?

20. Dr Abi James Product Manager iANSYST Ltd
Fen House
Fen Road
Cambridge
CB4 1UN