Dyslexic on a computer?

Question

I was told by a friend that they've heard of a blue screen you can use on your computer that helps dyslexic people read the screen better. Something about different shades of blue helps?

The reason I ask, I work at a school and we have an elementary student that is dyslexic. When his family traveled to TN last summer, he used a computer there and it had some sort of blue screen on it that helped him read it.

I have searched the internet, and only found screen readers, nothing that can help the person read it themselves.

Anyone know of anything?

Answer 1

You've gotten some good answers, but I found this interesting too: http://blackwidows.co.uk/blog/2006/10/06...

Answer 2

Try the Irlen site:

http://irlen.com/index.php?s=overlays

You can also change the internet browser settings if you have Internet Explorer 7.  You can make the text colors different, change the font, etc.

Go to "tools -> internet options -> appearance" and change the settings.  You can have IE ignore the default text and colors on pages.

++++ Edited to add:

Here a link on the Irlen site about dyslexia:

http://irlen.com/index.php?id=10

Answer 3

What kind of dyslexia do you mean.  The word dyslexia means "unable to read".  That word can be applied to all kinds of developmental learning disabilities involving reading functions.  The best strategies for a learning disability is whatever works best for that student.  If the child had an IEP in TN, and transferred to another state...you would need to adapt the interim Individual Learning Plan to accommodate the student.  If the Learning Support Teacher or person in the district in charge of special education contacts the TN school, they should tell the certified teacher or administrator what was used in that district.

Answer 4

I'm glad you followed my advice and posted this question here.... I knew from hsmomandlovinits previous answers that her son was dyslexic and thought that she would have the perfect answer for you....  I figured if anyone would know then someone who teaches their own dyslexic child would know from experience.....more so than the internet...   good luck

Answer 5

I'm not aware of the color-change screen, but something that has helped my dyslexic son is NetTrekker d.i.  It's a search engine database that is leveled for elementary, middle, and high school, and it has a feature that will read aloud (text to voice capability) any portion that the student highlights.  This helps my 10yo to be able to research on his own, and all of the sites are previewed by educators for readability, appropriateness of content, and educational content.

It's helped him to read more on his own, but when he hits a spot that he can't make sense of, it will read it to him.  Dyslexic people often need to be able to place information in context before they can understand it - having unfamiliar information read to them can help a lot with this.

Sorry I couldn't answer about the screen, but hopefully this will be of some help?  It has helped my dyslexic son immensely.

Edit - just to clarify - dyslexia doesn't mean "unable to read".  (The roots for it mean "difficult" and "speech" or "word".)  Many dyslexic people can read just fine - my 10yo reads Tolkien and CS Lewis on a regular basis.  However, spelling is extremely difficult for him because his brain doesn't "hear" phonemes, and because spelling is difficult, he's very hesitant about the physical act of writing.  Dyslexia is a linguistic processing disorder that can take any number of forms - there are nearly as many forms of dyslexia as there are dyslexic people.  

Dyslexia is a learning style, not a disability.  However, it's a learning style that does not often mesh well with rote learning, piece-by-piece information presentation, or standard question-and-answer/ fill-in-the-blanks work.  Dyslexic people are often incredibly able to pick out patterns that others wouldn't even notice, and they often need to have information presented to them in different ways.  They just plain learn differently than non-dyslexic people.

I've been thinking about this - was the blue screen a full screen, or was it a partial screen that isolated what he was reading?  Dyslexia often comes with a linguistic learning glitch or two, mostly because languages (especially English) are very complex and all of the exceptions make them seem very random.  Dyslexic people generally need to have a context to put information into - a hook to hang it on, you might say - and random information is often automatically rejected by their brains.  When linguistic patterns don't make sense, the information contained in them (whatever the student is reading) doesn't make it to the part of their brain that would retain and process it.  It's rejected before it gets there.

Isolation bars are helpful for many dyslexic kids, both in text and on screen reading.  The screen he used may have been something that fit onto the side and had a moveable bar (say, 4-6 inches wide) that had a transparent "screen" that allowed him to isolate what he was reading.  I think I've seen them at http://timberdoodle.com/ in the past, they may have what you're looking for or something similar.  (It's a company founded by and marketed toward homeschoolers, but anybody can order from them.)

Hope that helps!

Edit again - DHC, thank you!  That means a lot :-)

Answer 6

The only thing I know of is changing the background colour of Word documents (format > background) - not sure what you would do when using the internet.

Some dyslexic people suffer from Meares Irlen syndrome which means they find it difficult to read black print on a white background (it moves around), so yes, for these people different colours and shades of these colours can help them to stabilise the print - different people have different preferences for colours/shades of those colours.

Answer 7

Has this child seen a behavioural optometrist?  This would be the first place I would start especially for children with Sensory Processing Disorders.

Behavioural optometry goes beyond traditional vision checks and measures/finds out how the brain processes the visual information it is getting.

An optometrist will then work with the parent and child to exercise the eye to strengthen any processing weaknesses.

The other thought is that the refresh rate on a computer screen and its technology may affect the visual processing.

ie in comparing a 60Khz crt vs lcd - the lcd is better.  A CRT fires an electron beam across the screen to create the picture.  The lcd merely turns elements on and off.  

The blue screen that you are perhaps talking about may be the 'filter' that was used in addition to crt screens to cut down on electromagnetic radiation (the electron beam creates radiation when it hits the phospors).