Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Computers have been used effectively to provide support for people with a variety of special needs. One such group is adults with dyslexia. Dyslexia is commonly recognised as a learning disorder characterised by reading, writing and spelling difficulties. It inhibits recognition and processing of graphic symbols, particularly those pertaining to language. Computers are a useful aid for dyslexic adults, especially word processors and their associated spelling tools. However, there are still areas where improvements are needed. Creating an environment, which minimises visual discomfort associated with proof reading and making selections from lists would be of benefit. Furthermore providing the correct type and level of support for spelling, grammar and sentence construction may result in higher standards being achieved. A survey of 250 dyslexic adults established their requirements and enabled the development of a specialist word processing system and associated spelling support tools. The hypothesis, that using a language with enforced structure and rigid constraints has a positive affect for dyslexic adults, was also tested. A support tool, which provided a controlled environment, to assist with sentence construction for dyslexic adults was developed from this. Three environments were created using the word processing system: environment 1 used the basic system with no support, environment 2 provided spelling support suggested by the survey subjects and environment 3 used the sentence constructing tool providing support and control. Using these environments in controlled experiments indicated that although environment 2 achieved high academic standards, environment 3 produced written work to an even higher standard and at the same time, the subjects derived greater satisfaction in using it. This research proves that working in a controlled, rigid environment, where structure is enforced, substantially benefits dyslexic adults performing computer-based writing tasks.

Spell checkers are nowadays a common occurrence in most editors. A student writing an essay in school will often have the availability of a spell checker. However, the feedback from a spell checker seldom correlates with the feedback from a teacher. A reason for this being that the teacher has more aspects on which it evaluates a text. The teacher will, as opposed to the the spell checker, evaluate a text based on aspects such as genre adaptation, structure and word variation. This thesis evaluates how well those aspects translate to NLP (Natural Language Processing) and implements those who translate well into a rule based solution called Granska. / Grammatikgranskare finns numera tillgängligt i de flesta ordbehandlare. En student som skriver en uppsats har allt som oftast tillgång till en grammatikgranskare. Dock så skiljer det sig mycket mellan den återkoppling som studenten får från grammatikgranskaren respektive läraren. Detta då läraren ofta har fler aspekter som den använder sig av vid bedömingen utav en elevtext. Läraren, till skillnad från grammatikgranskaren, bedömmer en text på aspekter så som hur väl texten hör till en viss genre, dess struktur och ordvariation. Denna uppsats utforskar hur pass väl dessa aspekter går att anpassas till NLP (Natural Language Processing) och implementerar de som passar väl in i en regelbaserad lösning som heter Granska.