Dyslexia
Question: “What Are the Best
Dyslexia Coping Strategies?”
As you probably know already – Dyslexia is thought to be hereditry and affects a range of skills such as reading, comprehension and learning.
It can also adversely affect short term memory, the ability to quickly calculate answers to problems, and it can make a real mess of your organizational requirements and capabilities.
As I said – if you are dyslexic – then you probably know this already.
I am not going into detail about symptoms of Dyslexia here, as there are already many websites which will give you all that information.
While we all sit and wait for a cure from the medics – I want to talk here very briefly about coping strategies for living with Dyslexia.
“Why Am I Qualified to Speak About Dyslexia?”
While I am partially sighted – my wife has severe dyslexia. She rarely dials a phone number correctly first time (which leads to many wrong numbers!) and she reads painfully slowly – one word at a time.
She finds tasks that most people easily whizz through – to be time consuming and challenging.
However we have discovered some really helpful gadgets that make her life a lot easier. And now she’s able to read her emails and organize herself pretty much like anyone else.
So we have some pretty good track record in coping with Dyslexia.
Dyslexia Coping Strategy #1
One of the most tricky challenges can be simply reading emails and text on your computer.
As a research tool and communications vehicle, the computer is increasingly a must-have window on the world for most people.
If you’re dyslexic – it can be a real headache going onto the internet to do simple tasks like research, read eBooks and web pages, as well as reading comments on Twitter and Facebook etc.
Back in 2008 I discovered Natural Readers, which is an easy-to-use software program that turns computer text into human voices. It literally reads out loud any words or text on your computer.
You can read my full review of this program by following this link > > > Natural Reader Review
Although I initially bought this software to cope with eye-strain and my own partial sight loss – we found it really helps fantastically with my wife’s dyslexia. She is now able to go online with confidence and the software reads everything to her in natural human voices. It’s fair and reasonablt to say Natural Readers has undoubtedly changed her life.
Natural Readers does have a free version which I personally didn’t like as the voices used in the free version are rebotic and unnatural sounding.
As the software with the natural human voices is not expensive when you consider the value it delivers – I recommend the Natural Readers Personal Version for most people.
To go to the Natural Readers website to listen to samples of the voices by adding your own text and getting it played back with different male and female voices – follow this link > > > Natural Readers Website
You can also get a better idea of Natural Readers capabilities by reading my in-deoth review of Natural Readers – follow this limk > > > Natural Reader Review
Dyslexia Coping Strategy #2
It’s always nice to get a free solution to a problem and this one is one of my favorites.
Many people with Dyslexia have trouble with remembering things. Times and dates seem to flow away out of reach and it becomes really important to have a system that allows you to organize things into a clear and legible format.
There is some time management software called Time & Chaos that you can currently download at no cost. I originally bought my copy of this software some years back and found it to be extremely useful over the years
This software is made by Chaos Software who make a current ‘paid’ version of Time & Chaos. For the time being the old Version 6 works on operating systems up to and including Windows 7. However, for future releases of Windows you may need to upgrade to a more recent version.
It comes with:
1) Address book for contact’s details.
2) Appointment scheduler.
3) To-Do task manager.
Time & Chaos 6 works well for individuals or shared workgroups on networks.
One of the attractive features – particularly for a dyslexic person – is the fact that everything is controlled from a single dashboard.
You can see everything and access everything from a single page – making it the perfect organizational software for:
– Appointments.
– Addresses.
– Reminders.
– Vacations.
– Birthdays and important dates.
– Storage of emails and phone details.
From within the program you can launch websites, start emails and keep track of an infinite number of files and documents.
At the present time – without any payment or cost – you can go and download this program here > > > Time & Chaos 6
However, there is no guarantee this will be available for ever!
Dyslexia Coping Strategy #3
Here is another free (for the tme being) piece of software called “Easy Typist”
It is an intuitive on-screen keyboard that guesses which words you are likely to type next.
It’s difficult to explain here exactly how it works – but you can see clearly on this video demonstration here > > > Easy Typist Demonstration
Right now – this software is a Beta version – which means they are still fine-tuning the development of this typing tool and it is not yet ready for general release.
However – while it’s in Beta – you can download it for free.
Go here to download EasyTypist > > > Download EasyTypist
As this software looks really exciting for people with visual impairments and Dyslexia – I will be updating this section as developments take place.
I wish you amazing good health.
