This study ́ s main purpose is to examine how digital tools can help students with dyslexia in science education. The two questions this study aims to answer are: (I) During what elements of science education do the students feel that they need digital tools? (II) What opportunities and obstacles do students see with digital tools in the science education? This survey used a qualitative method, where students diagnosed with dyslexia were observed and interviewed during a normal school week. The data was analyzed using socio-cultural theories on speaking, learning and writing. The results from the interviews showed that the majority of the students felt the need for digital tools in science education when they were doing independent work or group assignments like laboratory work. The students find obstacles like social media small in comparison to what they learn from using the digital tools. All of the students see the digital tools as motivational tools. For further studies, it would be interesting to measure students' results before and after using digital tools for a period in science class including control groups with dyslexic students and non dyslexic students who did not have access to digital tools, to see if there is any difference between their results. Another aspect that would be relevant, is to test and evaluate what apps are available in science education for students with dyslexia, to work on concepts. These results could then be shared with other schools science educators.

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This paper has been a part of developing the serious game Kunna, a web-based game with exercises targeting children diagnosed with dyslexia. This game currently consists of five different exercises aiming to practice reading and writing without a therapist or neuropsychologist present. As Kunna can be used anywhere, tools are needed to understand each individual's capacities and difficulties. Hence, this paper aims to present how a serious game and a support vector machine were used to identify children that performed poorly in Kunna’s exercises. Though, due to the current corona pandemic, Kunna could only be tested on children not diagnosed with dyslexia. Therefore, this paper should be seen as a proof of concept. As an initial step, several variables were identified to measure the performance of dyslectic children. Secondly, the variables were implemented into Kunna and tested on 16 Spanish-speaking children. The results were analyzed to identify how poor performance could be recognized using the identified variables. As a final step, the data was divided into two groups for each exercise, of which one group contained participants who appear to perform poorly. These were participants with clearly outlying values in the number of errors and duration. Thus, to train and evaluate if a Support Vector Machine (SVM) can separate the two groups and thereby identify the participants who performed poorly. From the discussion followed that the SVM is not the most efficient choice for this aim. Instead, it is suggested that future work should consider multiclassification algorithms. / Den här uppsatsen har varit en del i utvecklingen av det seriösa spelet Kunna, ett webbaserat spel för barn diagnostiserade med dyslexi. Spelet består av fem olika övningar som syftar till att öva och utveckla barnens läs- och skrivförmåga. Då Kunna kan användas var som helst behövs verktyg för att förstå varje individs kapaciteter och svårigheter. Därför syftar den här uppsatsen till att presentera hur ett seriöst spel och stödvektormaskiner (eng. support vector machine) kan användas för att identifiera de användare som inte uppnådde prestationskraven. På grund av den uppblossande coronapandemin kunde dock Kunna enbart testas på barn som inte var diagnostiserade med dyslexi och därför bör den här uppsatsen ses som en pilotstudie. Inledningsvis identifierades flera variabler för att mäta prestandan hos barn med dyslexi. Därefter implementerades variablerna i Kunna och testades på 16 spansktalande barn där resultaten analyserades i syfte att identifiera samband kopplade till svaga prestationer. Slutligen delades deltagarnas data upp i två grupper, varav en grupp innehöll deltagare med klart högre värden i tid och antal fel. Uppdelningen gjordes för att träna och utvärdera om en stödvektormaskin kan separera de två grupperna och därav identifiera de deltagare som inte uppnådde prestationskraven. De slutliga resultaten indikerar dock att en stödvektormaskin inte är det effektivaste valet för detta ändamål. Istället föreslås att framtida arbeten bör överväga multiklassificeringsalgoritmer.

Developmental Dyslexia (DD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and Educational Attainment (EA) are highly prevalent conditions that have a significant impacton individuals' academic and social functioning. These conditions have a complex genetic basis and are often comorbid. To assess the polygenic architecture of these traits, psychiatric genetics researchers utilize a sophisticated tool known as polygenic scores (PGS). By combining numerous genes of individually modest effects, PGS summarizes an individual's genetic risk as a single score. In this study, we aimed to examine the association between PGS for ADHD and EA with typical DD traits. Using a meta-analytic approach, we analyzed data from earlier studies and found that PGS-ADHD accounts for 1.2% of the variance in DD, with a pooled effect size of r = -0.11 (95% CI = [-0.171, -0.050]). Similarly, PGS-EA accounted for 3.2% of the variance in DD, with a pooled effect size of r = 0.18 (95% CI = [0.070, 0.288]). Although these effect sizes are relatively small, it is important to note that PGS are not typically strong predictors on their own, but rather capture a small portion of the genetic variation that contributes to a trait or outcome. My findings suggest that PGS for ADHD and EA are associated with DD, indicating that DD has a complex genetic basis. However, these findings also raise questions about the impact of PGS on psychiatric research moving forward. To address these questions, I provide recommendations for future researchdirections.

Perceptual deficits related to phonology in children with speech delay (SD) and children with dyslexia have been identified in separate lines of research. However, there has only been a small number of studies that have investigated the perceptual deficits of children with SD and/or dyslexia in the same study to better understand the overlap of their speech perception abilities. Children with SD have previously shown deficits perceiving speech stimuli that is acoustically sparse, particularly when stimuli contain speech sounds they do not produce correctly. Yet in contrast to children with dyslexia, children with SD are better able to recover linguistic structure from speech stimuli that preserves global acoustic structure in the absence of spectral detail. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to further investigate how children with SD, dyslexia, SD + dyslexia, and typically developing (TD) peers perceive different types of speech. To do this, we used both vocoded speech and sine-wave speech recognition tasks. In this study, 40 children (ages 7-10 years) with SD, dyslexia, SD + dyslexia, and/or typically developing were presented with both sine-wave and vocoded speech recognition tasks to investigate their speech perception. Findings revealed no differences between groups for both the sine-wave and vocoded speech perception tasks, regardless of SD and/or dyslexia status. Increasing the number of participants or utilizing more sensitive speech perception tasks may provide clinically applicable resources for assessment or intervention. We discuss these findings in the context of previous research literature and also discuss limitations of the current study and future directions for follow-up investigations.

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Approximately 15% to 20% of Americans struggle with learning disabilities. The National Institutes of Health reported that 60% to 80% of those with learning disabilities have problems with reading and language skills (as cited in International Dyslexia Association, 2000). Dyslexia is a specific learning disability and according to Moats (2008), it is more common than any other kind of learning disability. Dyslexia varies in degrees of severity. About 4% of those diagnosed with dyslexia are severely dyslexic. This includes some 375,000 school children (Dyslexia Action, 2006). Although dyslexia certainly causes difficulties for children, many of them are bright and capable. Dyslexia also seems to be associated with many strengths and talents. Dyslexic children tend to be very creative thinkers, highly imaginative, and excellent in art, music, or drama (Marshall, 2004). Unfortunately, unless a person is dyslexic it is difficult for anyone, including educators, to understand the struggles and hard work that encompass the day-to-day activities of a dyslexic person's life. The causes of dyslexia still remain a mystery and, therefore, educators and researchers may disagree on the best way to help the dyslexic student learn. Additionally, public educational institutions have been uninformed, ill equipped, and consequently ineffective in dealing with the educational needs of the dyslexic child. The purpose of this study was to examine a school specializing in teaching children with dyslexia for the purpose of determining what methods and practices are being used that are conducive to developing the creative potential of the dyslexic child. The findings revealed that the methods and practices used at the Jemicy School are conducive to developing the creative potential of dyslexic children. The study confirmed that using multisensory and experiential education does foster students' creativity. The school's unique environment along with the effective teaching methods used could and should be incorporated into other school systems. The exemplary education provided by the Jemicy School makes the school a viable benchmark for other schools to follow. The Jemicy School might be a model for educators to follow for helping dyslexic children learn in order to reach their fullest potential.

This small study investigates the status of accessibility in the context of UK higher education. This is achieved through a case study which evaluates the accessibility status of three UK London-based university digital libraries. The evaluation is performed via the use of a quantitative data collection method, which is examination of conformance to WCAG2.0 standards using online accessibility evaluation tools, and a qualitative method, which is the interviewing and recording of comments by three users with dyslexia evaluating the university digital libraries in real time. The results are then discussed within the framework of the social model of disability and privatised higher education.

Approximately five percent of the Swedish population suffer from dyslexia. Therefore, this degree project aims to gain an insight into what pedagogical support in Swedish and English teaching can be offered to dyslexic pupils. Firstly, this paper provides an overview of theories and literature on dyslexia in L1 and L2. The researchers’ findings show that dyslectic difficulties in the L1 is most likely to affect – either by limiting or enhancing – the pupils’ abilities to learn a L2. Strategies (spelling, comparing sounds and letters) that pupils learned when they started to read and write in their L1 and the differences in orthographic systems between L1 and L2 influence their reading and writing in L2. This study is also based on interviews of four K-3 teachers in the south of Sweden. The major conclusions of this study are that (i) dyslectic difficulties extend across languages, (ii) variation of the teachers’ knowledge of dyslexia might depend on the length of their professional teaching experience and their willingness and interest to learn more about dyslexia, (iii) K-3 teachers are dependent on special education teachers’ advice on how to support dyslexic pupils, and (iv) K-3 teachers use digital resources and audiobooks to train the reading and writing in L1, but not in L2 since English in K-3 mostly focuses in training pupils’ speaking skills.

This essay looks at the language based disorder dyslexia and how it affects students’ ability to learn a foreign language. It will look closer at the strategies and tools foreign language teachers use to tackle the problems a dyslexic student may have when learning a new language. This research draws upon the interviews of foreign language teachers as well as the existing research on dyslexia and language acquisition. The main research questions of this essay are: How do foreign language teachers describe the disorder dyslexia both from a theoretical perspective as well as from a practical perspective? What difficulties do foreign language teachers have when teaching dyslexicstudent? What strategies do foreign language teachers use when teaching a student with dyslexia? By using the qualitative research approach, interviews, it was found that while foreign language teachers are aware of dyslexia they need to be given more education about language based disorders so that they are more equipped to help their students. This research will highlight the importance of giving foreign language teachers the needed tools and strategies to better support dyslexic students as they learn a new language.