The power of technological innovation is sometimes astounding.
BraillieTouch
Mario Romero a post-doctoral researcher at Georgia Institute of Technology has co-developed an app, called BrailleTouch, that could help blind people send text messages and type e-mails on touch-screen smartphones. The free app, which is being developed for Apple iOS and Google Android devices, should be available in a matter of weeks.
Dyslexie
A Dutch graphic designer and dyslexic, Christian Boer, developed a font specifically for dyslexic readers. The Dyslexie font works by tweaking the appearance of certain letters of the alphabet that dyslexics commonly misconstrue, such as “p”, “b” and “d,” to make them more distinct from each other and to keep them “tied down,” so that the reader is less likely to flip them in their minds. The letters in the font are also spaced wide apart to make reading them easier.
The font is available for purchase, in either English or Dutch, from Boer’s website in English or Dutch. The font can be used on either the Mac or Windows operating system, but not on devices such as iPads. However, a software company called LingApps says it will soon offer an assistive reading and writing application for iPad that uses Dyslexie.
Some U.S. schools are now using the font ,but there’s not yet been any major study by a educational system or government to gauge the font’s value in teaching young dyslexics how to read. Boer does not tout the font as a “cure” for dyslexia but as a tool that can help individuals with dyslexia.
Check out Scientific American’s deeper dive into the project, which includes a link to a Dyslexie version of the article, so you can compare it to the magazine website’s font.
For details on how Boer created the font, check out this video.
WINAHEAD 