Ten to 15% of school-age children with reading disabilities like dyslexia. Currently, interventions proved to help these students rely on access to trained specialists only in well-resourced classrooms or clinical settings. This means many students in under-resourced schools in the United States and around the world continue to struggle.
University of Connecticut associate professor of psychological sciences Nicole Landi and her colleagues are working on a remedy to this problem. Through a $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, she will evaluate the effectiveness of a home-administered technology designed to help children with Reading Disability.
UConn professors of psychological sciences Fumiko Hoeft and Ken Pugh are co-investigators on this project. UConn is partnering with Haskins Laboratories, the Child Mind Institute, and Georgia State University on this work.
GraphoLearn, a game that helps teach basic letters and sounds, has emerged as a leader in reading-focused educational technology. Children can play the game independently at home, a major advantage for children who may not have access to a classroom or clinic-based interventions.
This project is particularly timely, as many children are currently engaged in remote learning. Given the unique situation presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, home-based education technology interventions are likely to become more accepted and desired even when in-person education fully resumes.
