Augmented Reality to Overcome Dyslexia

THE PROBLEM:

1 out of 10 people worldwide are affected by learning disabilities and the most common one is dyslexia​. Dyslexia lowers student self esteem and these students are 3 times more likely to drop out of school  and 2 times more likely to be suspended than that of their general education peers.​ As well as making learning to read and write more difficult for individuals, it also affects their families and the surrounding community.

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OUR SOLUTION:

​​We aim to help these students by creating an Augmented Reality program that will help them better keep up with their peers. Our team's concept features an AR headset worn by a user that tracks the words they write onto paper. If there is a misplaced or invalid character, the headset would highlight that character and help them correct the mistake, thereby allowing identifying weaknesses and creating immediate feedback. Unlike current market products which only detect syntax and spelling errors, our device also will use machine learning to detect characters that have been written incorrectly, which is an error many people with dyslexia struggle with when learning to write.  Another shortcoming of current products is that they only analyze handwriting after the user has finished writing an entire sentence. Team ART plans to implement a LIVE handwriting correction system to create a more intuitive experience.  

OUR MISSION:

We strive to help children with dyslexia overcome their learning disability by providing them real time handwriting correction. Whether it be by correcting their spelling or incorrect characters, children will be able to get live feedback on their papers as they are being written which will allow them to better keep up with their general education peers in school. By utilizing the Microsoft HoloLens and other augmented reality technologies, we plan to design an application that provides on screen corrections as the user writes and makes mistakes. Our goal is to make sure that all students feel that they have a place in the classroom and the resources they need to reach their full potential. 

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HELP US:

​The hardware needed to complete this project is very expensive and we cannot do it without your help. We need to purchase a Microsoft HoloLens which costs $3,000 (plus shipping and handling) in order to complete our research and build our application. Please consider donating to our team to help this vision turn into a reality! Also, feel free to check out our team website and Facebook page below.

Team Website: http://teamart-gemstone.com/

Team Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UMDGemstoneTeamART/ 

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!

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