Tips for Academic Writing [Premium]

Tips for Academic Writing [Premium]

Here are tips for academic writing from dyslexic grad students and university tutors.     1. REGULAR TIME FOR WRITING Plan regular times for research and writing. Schedule breaks, transitions, and catch-up periods. Unplug from email and social media and tell people not to interrupt you.   2. USE PRE-WRITING STRATEGIES Use key words or mind mapping to get information down on paper without using full sentences. Tell someone about the topic or record yourself talking about what you plan to do or use speech to text dictation in your phone to jot down notes in Notability or another app of your choice.   3. USE PROMPTS TO STRUCTURE Simplify your question prompts or use a template (who, what, when where, why, how; statement, evidence, […]

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Music And Dyslexia:  Chat with Sally Daunt, Chair of the Music Committee of the BDA [Premium]

Music And Dyslexia: Chat with Sally Daunt, Chair of the Music Committee of the BDA [Premium]

Recently, I had a wonderful opportunity to chat with Sally Daunt, Chairwoman of the Music Committee of the British Dyslexia Association. We had been corresponding about dyslexia and choral groups and Sally had asked about how dyslexic strengths can manifest themselves in choral groups where singers had to fit into tightly controlled schedules of music, extensive sight reading, and music performances which could have limited opportunities for musical interpretation. From my discussion with Sally: “Many dyslexic musicians have difficulty with sight reading – and perhaps cathedral choirs might consider whether an absolute requirement is necessary in the audition process. Some who have difficulty with sight reading might be able to pick music up quite quickly having heard a version once. In theater companies, some accommodations […]

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Best Writing Apps [Premium]

Best Writing Apps [Premium]

We’ve talked a bit about speech to text for writing, but over time, many dyslexic students may prefer to write by typing or by hand. Technology can help dyslexic writers in many different ways, depending on their needs.     For young children with little or no eideitic (snapshot picture) memory for letters may benefit by an alphabet strip pasted inconspicuously in a folder or perhaps on a bulletin board. Students who are able to write by hand, but write very little because they’re uncertain of how to spell words, benefit tremendously by apps like Easy Spelling Aid which will find the spelling of words by speaking into the microphone. It also translate words. Check out these apps! Click on photos to access their sites. […]

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Essential Tech: Favorites for Work/Life [Premium]

Essential Tech: Favorites for Work/Life [Premium]

Every year technology gets better and better and it’s clear that finally it’s catching up with dyslexic minds.   Major technology companies have finally responded to calls to optimize their text-to-speech, speech-to-text, and spell and grammar checkers to the dyslexic community. If you tried and then gave up on technology in the past, now is the time to check again.     VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS Phones, tablets, laptops, and smart watches all have virtual assistants.   Siri will send and read texts, set alarms and timers, make calls / start facetime, set reminders and check calendar, do translations and conversion, solve math equations, navigate on apple maps, search and create notes, play voicemails, check the weather, find files on the Mac, check stocks, even fill out […]

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Dyslexic Talents in STEM: Chemistry [Premium]

Dyslexic Talents in STEM: Chemistry [Premium]

“Through most of high school, I hated math and science. It wasn’t until my senior year when I took AP statistics and AP chemistry that I discovered that I enjoyed solving challenging analytical problems. After I graduate in May, I plan to pursue a graduate degree in Electrical Engineering.” – Leah Harper   Although chemistry may present dyslexic students with challenges, once the initial difficulty of notation and the periodic chart are mastered, the spatial and analytical aspects of chemistry can become life-long endeavors. In a video (that’s now unavailable on YouTube), Dr. Blake Charlton talked about how he discovered the narrative intelligence associated with dyslexia and how he used it to help him learn the periodic chart. Instead of memorizing columns of elements by […]

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Managing Information with Concept Maps [Premium]

Managing Information with Concept Maps [Premium]

Although many people may use the terms “concept map” and “mind map” interchangeably, mind maps tend to be simpler, relating information to a central topic, whereas concept maps seek to cover more complex subjects, relating different parts to each other. Concept maps can be used to simplify material because different information can be grouped together and in the making of the map it can be easier to see how new knowledge builds on old. The process of making a concept map also transforms learning into an active process and students who are strong personal and experiential learners may remember the process better than reading through notes again and again. For students who say that they get lost in class, doing a concept map can help […]

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Hands-on Math and Games with Ronit Bird [Premium]

Hands-on Math and Games with Ronit Bird [Premium]

Recently, I discovered the math activities of Ronit Bird.   Ronit Bird is the author of several books about Dyscalculia. She has helpful tips for parents and teachers about concrete manipulatives and building up a sense of number through activities more than worksheets. I confess, I wish I had had this more when I was a kid. The tricky thing about math and activities even if you’re home schooling or home-enriching is that students who are weak in an area will often not want to do it, even if it’s something that would be beneficial for them to do. In our family, we had one child who was very, very good at all types of speed-based computer games, and another who was decidedly not good […]

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Tech Executive Justin Johnson [Premium]

Tech Executive Justin Johnson [Premium]

“One of the things I love about startups is I get to engage the strategic thinking part of my brain across a broad set of things…”   John Edgar introduced me to Justin from Macrometa and he shared his career and dyslexia story with me: “What I do now is, I work in a very early stage startup. So I do a lot of different things. Part of it’s visual, I manage user experience. With UX UI, or Developer Console, our company is kind of like cloud computing, like Amazon Web Services. We just have a little different play on it, where we do a lot of similar things to what Amazon does, we just do it all distributed across multiple locations, and we manage […]

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Why Many Dyslexics Thrive in Technology [Premium]

Why Many Dyslexics Thrive in Technology [Premium]

In every year that we’ve had our college scholarships program, technology majors have been among the winners. Dyslexic innovators are also often tech innovators themselves or innovators at the boundaries of technology and people. But why is this?   There are many reasons, but certainly one central reason is that technology is a particularly adept at compensating for the greatest challenges that dyslexics face, while requiring the strengths that creative human problem solvers bring. The net result is a dyslexic innovator who can solve real human needs, while recognizing how they must leverage their own strengths. Thomas G. West, author of In the Mind’s Eye: Creative Visual Thinkers, Gifted Dyslexics, and the Rise of Technology, has lamented the fact that much of the education today […]

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