Assistive Mobile Applications for Dyslexia

The ability to read is one of the main skills of a human being. However, some of us have reading difficulties, regardless of social status, level of intelligence or education. This disorder is the main characteristic of dyslexia and is maintained throughout life, requiring early and specialized intervention. Dyslexia is defined as a learning disturbance in the area of reading, writing and spelling. Although the numbers of prevalence rely heavily on the type of investigation conducted, several studies indicate that up to 17% of the world population is dyslexic, and that men have greater prevalence.In this work we will address the use of assistive mobile applications for dyslexia by analyzing possible solutions and proposing a prototype of a mobile application that can be used by dyslexic and whilst giving feedback both to the dyslexic him/herself and to the assisting technician or teacher. The implemented prototype focuses the Portuguese language and was tested with Portuguese students with ages between 10 and 12 years old.Preliminary results show that the proposed gamified set of activities, allow dyslexics to improve multisensory perception, constituting an added value facilitator of adaptiveness and learning.