Re: [school-discuss] Home school for dyslexic students

[LM <lmemsm@xxxxxxxxx>]

I'll throw out one more idea on the topic and perhaps we can do some
brainstorming.  There are some Linux distributions for visually
disabled users.  Perhaps some of their tools or even the entire
distributions would be useful for dyslexic users too.

At one point, I did some checking into what it would take to make
systems more user friendly for visually disabled users.  Didn't get
very far.  I did find a discussion on the possibility of enabling INX
(an all command line distribution) for visually impaired users.  I
believe there was a mention of using command line tools and doing a
tee to espeak.  I found a FreeBSD podcast by a blind user on how he
worked with FreeBSD.  There's also a mailing list for visually
impaired users.  I remember posting a few questions to it at one
point.  I had read from certain sources that it was easier to take a
command line/console based system and make them accessible.  However,
when I asked questions on the mailing list, some of the users found
certain GUI based applications even easier to work with than the
command line ones.  It would be nice to check into some of the
techniques these types of distributions use and see how easy it would
be to enable.  Would really like to see an article at the Schoolforge
wiki on tips for making applications and operating systems more
friendly for those with visual (or other) impairments.

I'm also curious if there have been any studies on dyslexia and
learning through games.  What types of games would be the most
effective from an educational sense?  I've been looking at the code
for some Open Source SDL based educational games.  It might not be
that hard to add a few system calls to espeak in the games or play
some wave files with voices recorded.  Most games are already enabled
with sound effects.  Why not add some words in as well?  I can't help
wondering how many Open Source games already out there might be easy
to make a few code modifications to in order to reach a wider
audience.  If anyone's interested in discussing or pursuing this
further, I'd certainly be happy to look at the code for some Open
Source applications and see what it might take to make some changes to
them that could make them more user-friendly for users with
disabilities.

Sincerely,
Laura
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