Dyslexia: Now You Can Take A Walk In Their Shoes

By Victoria Robertson on March 12, 2016

As college students, we’ve all come a long way. We’ve managed to overcome obstacles thrown at us throughout our academic careers and we’ve grown as intellectuals, bettering ourselves by pursuing a college degree.

But some of us have been tasked with overcoming obstacles that others couldn’t possibly understand, obstacles that inhibit our learning abilities and make simple, everyday assignments an actual struggle.

That is, until now.

Dyslexia, an oftentimes misunderstood, lifelong condition that affects a person’s ability to read, write, spell and speak used to be a condition that, unless you had it, you couldn’t possibly know the difficulties associated with it.

scoopempire.com

Now, this misunderstood condition has become far more understandable thanks to a new website that simulates the sensation for those that don’t have the condition, allowing them to step into a dyslexic person’s shoes.

Affecting one in five people, dyslexia is so common that celebrities such as Tom Cruise and Richard Branson have spoken to it, especially since a condition so common is very seldom understood by those without it.

Victor Widell, a coder with a dyslexic friend, wanted to know what the condition did -– wanted to understand the condition more in depth so as to better understand his friend.

In his friend’s words, when she is reading, it’s as if the letters in the words are being swapped in and out of place.

So, the coder created this simulation to teach others not only what it feels like to read with dyslexia, but also how difficult and time consuming simple tasks such as reading a paragraph can become when faced with the condition.

For those of you that read the passage on the site (or that tried, but were unable to translate), here is the full text:

“A friend who has dyslexia described to me how she experiences reading. She can read, but it takes a lot of concentration, and the letters seem to ‘jump around.’

“I remembered reading about typoglycemia. Wouldn’t it be possible to do it interactively on a website with JavaScript? Sure it would.

“Dyslexia is characterized by difficulty with learning to read fluently and with accurate comprehension despite normal intelligence. This includes difficulty with phonological awareness, phonological decoding, processing speed, orthographic coding, auditory short-term memory, language skills/verbal comprehension, and/or rapid naming.

“Developmental reading disorder (DRD) is the most common learning disability. Dyslexia is the most recognized of reading disorders, however not all reading disorders are linked to dyslexia.

“Some see dyslexia as distinct from reading difficulties resulting from other causes, such as a non-neurological deficiency with vision or hearing, or poor or inadequate reading instruction.

“There are three proposed cognitive subtypes of dyslexia (auditory, visual and attentional), although individual cases of dyslexia are better explained by specific underlying neuropsychological deficits and co-occurring learning disabilities (e.g. attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, math disability, etc.).

“Although it is considered to be a receptive language-based learning disability in the research literature, dyslexia also affects one’s expressive language skills. Researchers at MIT found that people with dyslexia exhibited impaired voice-recognition abilities.”

While the website gets the point across, it’s also important to note that it’s not entirely accurate. While some may experience dyslexia in this way, others do not. There is a lot of variation to the condition, and though seeing movement in words and seeing letter rotations are both very common, not everyone will experience them.

The response from dyslexic community members has been varied, as some believe their condition is mirrored by the simulation while others believe their condition varies, slightly or greatly, from the simulation.

But for those that aren’t familiar with the condition, or that have heard of it, but weren’t quite sure what it meant, this website is groundbreaking.

Even if not all variations of the condition are displayed in this coding, the general idea is, taking a once misunderstood condition and transforming it into a tangible, understandable condition that might just help to change the way that we think about overcoming learning-related obstacles.

Follow Uloop

Apply to Write for Uloop News

Join the Uloop News Team

Discuss This Article

Back to Top

Log In

Contact Us

Upload An Image

Please select an image to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format
OR
Provide URL where image can be downloaded
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format

By clicking this button,
you agree to the terms of use

By clicking "Create Alert" I agree to the Uloop Terms of Use.

Image not available.

Add a Photo

Please select a photo to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format