Audio Notetaker by Sonocent

Audio Notetaker offers a visual and interactive form of note taking – one where audio, text and images are used to create truly comprehensive notes. 

Penfriend: Predictive text and screen reader features for dyslexic, visually impaired

Word prediction
Word prediction is very valuable for those with dyslexia where recognising a correctly spelt word offered by the predictor is easier than thinking how to spell it in the first place.

Better spelling, grammar, thesaurus, dictionaries

Better spelling and grammar helps many but particularly those with dyslexia. Knowing that Penfriend provides correctly spelt words gives greater confidence.

The access provided by Penfriend XL to Microsoft Word's spell checking, thesaurus, dictionaries and translation is of great help to any with dyslexia.

Speech Feedback and Screen Reading
Another benefit of Penfriend for those with dyslexia is it's speech feedback and in Penfriend XL its screen reading features.

Being able to hear each letter, word or sentence vocalized as you type is of very obvious value to those with dyslexia, but Penfriend also allows you to highlight a block of text or an entire document and have it read back to you. This not only allows dyslexic people to understand the contents of a document they may not be able to read, but also helps them to associate the sound of a word with how it looks on the page.

On-screen keyboard
Penfriend's on-screen keyboard reduces the strain of glancing between screen and keyboard, a valuable tool for the dyslexic using a computer.

Check out the Penfriend Newsletter (PDF)

New features in Dolphin's SuperNova version 12 - YouTube

This short video is a quick guide to the new features, functionality and application support included in SuperNova version 12.

Dyslexia: Predictive text Tool - Penfriends

View more presentations from Penfriend Ltd

Penfriend's suite of literacy tools

Penfriend features a comprehensive suite of literacy tools and so much more! Penfriend claim to be able to support people of all abilities and ages.

If you have a literacy difficulty such as dyslexia you may benefit from tools similar to Penfriend, helping with spelling and grammar.

As well as predicting words when you type, Penfriend will read text aloud from websites, documents, in fact any Windows text-based program.

The Penfriend Blog

With the release of the new Penfriend Blog there are now video tutorials to get you up and running with Penfriend as quickly as possible.

If you’d like to contact or keep up-to-date with what’s happening at Penfriend then you can view and follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

Penfriend benefits?

Penfriend software claims it may benefit users who have dyslexia, visual impairment or physical disablilities, including Cerebral Palsy, Multiple Sclerosis, Motor Neurone Disease, Stroke, limb deformities and any condition which impairs the ability to write with a keyboard.

Penfriend also claims to help users to write faster by predicting the next word they want to type, allowing faster writing for longer tasks, promoting better spelling and grammar and encouraging users to overcome low self esteem and become more confident writers.

Features include powerful word prediction, on-screen keyboard, screen reading, lexicon editing and the ability to learn new words as you type.

You Decide
We do not recommend this product but simply provide the information for you to decide whether it is relevant and /or helpful to you. Be careful, take normal precautions and do be confident in the benefits before spending money over the internet.

Fonts and Dyslexia

Fonts and Dyslexia – an article from iansyst Ltd

Dyslexia can mean that a person has a sensitivity to particular typefaces, both in print and on screen. It is always good to understand a person's particular preferences and dislikes when it comes to font selection and this should be examined with each individual.

Whatever materials you are creating, it is good to consider whether they are going to be accessible to as broad an audience as possible.

Many dyslexic and non-dyslexic people find that the readability of a piece of text varies greatly depending upon the font (type face or type style) used.

Serif fonts, with their ‘ticks’ and ‘tails’ at the end of most strokes (as found in traditional print fonts such as Georgia or Times New Roman), tend to obscure the shapes of letters, so sans-serif fonts are generally preferred.

Many dyslexic people also find it easier to read a font that looks similar to hand writing as they are familiar with this style, and some teachers prefer them. However these types of fonts can lead to confusion with some letter combinations, such as “oa” and “oo”; “rn” and “m”.

The size of the ascenders and descenders of letters (the ‘stems’ on letters like p and b) is also important as many dyslexic readers rely on recalling the visual shape of a word due to poor phonological awareness.

If ascenders and descenders are too short the shape of the word is more difficult to identify and can make reading slower and less accurate.

Read Regular - Font
Recently Natascha Frensch, a graphic designer at the Royal College of Art, has designed a font (Read Regular) specifically for dyslexic readers, taking into account the issues discussed above.
There are examples of Read Regular on her web site at www.readregular.com and the children’s publisher Chrysalis is now using it for two-thirds of the 150 children’s titles it brings out every year.

Lexia Readable
Has also been designed specifically for dyslexia and is actually available. You can download it from www.k-type.com/ free for individual use. It has developed quite a bit over the last few months, although it still has some minor irregularities.

It tries to avoid some possible dyslexic confusions (eg b-d) by using different shapes, and is broadly based on Comic Sans, see below. Please let us know what you think of it.

Tiresias
This font has been designed for people with Visual Impairment. Originally produced for subtitles and signs there is now a screen version Tiresias PC font. Tiresias is now free to download. It is good for legibility, but doesn’t address the issue of dyslexic confusions.

Sassoon

The font Sassoon, is often recommended for dyslexia, but was actually designed to assist children in early reading. Also, it is quite expensive and can be bought through Adrian Williams Design and elsewhere on the web.

Letter shapes are similar to those that schools use to teach handwriting, and ascenders and descenders are exaggerated to emphasise word shapes.

Myriad Pro

Myriad pro was designed by Adobe and it has a clean sans serif aesthetic making it suitable for people with dyslexia.

Web based Fonts
Verdana is a very popular and clear font used by many on websites but arguably better is Trebuchet MS. It has short descenders but reasonably long ascenders, a small body size and generous line spacing. We find this font suits many readers both dyslexic and non-dyslexic.

Write Friendly Text

To test your sensitivity to these fonts, choose one from the ones suggetsed, print out some text in 12 points and check them out for yourself. You can also ask your friends and family about their choices and preferences.

Apart from the font selection, think carefully about colour and printing on coloured paper. There are a number of good and bad combinations that you should be awareof.

For more advice and guidance, follow the advice in the BDA’s Dyslexia Friendly Style Guide and we wish you more friendly writing for the future!

For more information on Fonts and Typefaces check out my Copy writing block post on the subject.

Capturatalk: Mobile App that Reads Text

Readability - An Arc90 Lab Experiment

Readability - An Arc90 Lab Experiment

Make Reading Websites and Blogs much easier with this tool from Readability. You can remove the annoying flashing bits around the text, change the text size and greatly improve the clarity of the writing.

Please let me know how this helps you or what problems you have with it