Dyslexia Awareness Week

With Halloween just around the corner and many households prepping for an inundation of trick or treaters.

This week is Dyslexia Awareness Week, and this year the British Dyslexia Association are attempting to help people ‘Make sense of Dyslexia’.

There are many different ways to define dyslexia, as it is a condition which has many different factors. It is a learning disability which affects a person’s ability to read, write and spell.

It is estimated that 1 in every 10 to 20 people in the UK have some form of dyslexia, with 1 in 4 of these having a diagnosed severe case.

Those with dyslexia often struggle at school, and it was difficult for those with the condition in the past, as it was often not diagnosed due to lack of understanding.

These days, a diagnosis is much easier to come by, however coping with the difficulties posed by dyslexia is a challenge that will affect those affected for the rest of their lives.

Below, we discuss four different ways of making your life easier if you are dyslexic.

Text to Speech

With modern advances in technology, people who are diagnosed with dyslexia now have more options available to them when writing and reading. Computers, smartphones and tablets all have the option to use a ‘text to speech’ feature, in which any text that is printed on screen can be narrated by the voice of the gadget. This allows users to hear anything that they want to read, without having to worry about having difficulty reading the words. Similarly, this can work in the opposite way, by allowing someone to narrate to a piece of technology, with the gadget converting this into a block of text. This saves a lot of time over commonly used methods such as recording a voice reading or having to struggle to read the words.

Coloured Overlays

Many people who are diagnosed with dyslexia struggle to see black text on a white background. As this is the most common colour combination for the written word, it can make life difficult when trying to read anything from a website to a menu. Luckily, there is a simple option to make their lives easier, through a piece of acetate! A coloured acetate overlay, essentially a transparent piece of coloured plastic, can be placed over any piece of text or screen to change the background colour to one that is easier to read from. With a different range of colours which can be combined to create a perfect background colour for each individual.

Divide Tasks

Often, when faced with a large amount of work, someone with dyslexia might feel overwhelmed or unable to complete the task at hand. A recommended method for this is to tackle the work in manageable chunks. Breaking down a task into ‘bite-size’ pieces allows you to work on different sections of work in an order that makes more sense to someone with dyslexia. This will make it easier to complete tasks in a structured way.

If you are interested in learning more about learning disabilities, why not take a look at our Special Educational Needs course?