Genesis of the MDA AVAZ Reader App
Assistive Technology
By Harini Ramanujam & Mala R Natarajan
Technological scaffolding can give a significant independence to the functioning of children and adults with dyslexia. Madras Dyslexia Association had been toying with this idea for a while and carried out a study of the impact of some apps that could read-out texts. Encouraged by acceptance of such apps by students being remediated by MDA, Invention Labs was brought in on the merit of their effective app – Avaz-a picture and text based communication app for children with communication challenges.
Based on the scientific theories of the teaching-learning process, MDA Avaz Reader App strives to provide the user with a reading environment that emulates the time-tested reading strategies taught in a remedial class. This not only provides support, on demand, during every instance of reading, but also reinforces all facets of reading viz. decoding, fluency and comprehension. The development team spent many hours with us at Ananya to understand the strategies that are taught to our children to cope with reading difficulties. These strategies were then categorised to enable a phased development of the app. This paves way for a strategy of continuous development of the app. The work done in the past one year has resulted in the release of the 1st version of the app.
A robust OCR technology enables the reader to take up any textual material and smoothen rough edges, if any using, the Review process. This is the only process that needs Internet connectivity. This enables that the material can be presented in fonts and spacing best suited to the reader. The reader gains from the contextual clues available in the original textual material, hence this app presents the text in its original form too. Observing the merit of a “window focus”, the app provides this option for a line-by-line display of text to keep the reader’s attention to the required line.
One of the important objectives of the app is to facilitate the skill of transfer of learning among the struggling readers. The present version of the app includes fine points like hints for a difficult word that highlight similarity in end or starting blends with known simpler words, syllabication and picture hints in a manner similar to the methodologies adopted in the remedial classroom. Testing and evaluation are essential to ensure a quality product. The teachers at Ananya meticulously followed the test plan and recorded their observations while the children used the app to read texts appropriate to their level. In addition, this reader app was tested in schools on children with deficit in English language. The children demonstrated significant improvement in fluency and comprehension. All applicable feedback was ploughed back to deliver a reading app that provided support as close as possible to that given by a special educator.
It is with much happiness that we would like to share a response from one of the students of Ananya. “Ma’am, I love this app. Now I can read independently without asking for help from anyone”.