How AI Will Help Students With Dyslexia

AI (i.e., Artificial Intelligence) has the potential to help support students’ individual needs in ways that traditional accommodations may not.

Traditionally, most schools have not been set up to help dyslexic students learn in the most effective way. For example, traditional classrooms measure students’ learning largely through tests that can require copious amounts of reading, which is very hard for students who struggle with reading. Although there are accommodations for students with dyslexia, they are often generic. Accommodations, such as extra time, are important, but can do little to help the students address the root problem. 

AI (i.e., Artificial Intelligence) has the potential to help support students’ individual needs in ways that traditional accommodations may not. For example, AI can summarize complicated text into text that helps explain the content. AI can also translate text into speech, so that the student can listen to the information (i.e., reading with their ears) and better access written text. The students can customize the voice and speed so that it is easier for them to understand and follow along. AI can also help students create semantic maps and visual ways to represent text in formats that work better for them. In general, AI has potential to help create contexts where dyslexic students have the ability to customize formats to use in their studies, making it so that they can more easily access, and ultimately, learn the information.

While AI has many beneficial uses, it also comes with many downsides. AI usage by both teachers and students is on the rise; 85% and 86%, respectively, reported using AI in the last school year. AI is making it so that students are no longer building relationships with their teachers or other peers as much as they used to. Teachers are also concerned about AI decreasing critical thinking skills and research skills in children. AI is not going away, so it is important to make sure that both students and teachers are receiving training on how to best use AI to minimize the risks and negative effects of it. Teachers and students also are using AI differently. Teachers are mainly used to being able to get through administrative tasks faster where students use it to complete tasks faster, which it is not necessarily helping. Students’ use of AI can also change from asking about school-related things to asking AI about relationships and mental health help, which can potentially harm them. This is why teachers need training in AI, and students need to be literate about AI.

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Image Source: CDC