Assistive Technology for Dyslexia

“For most, technology makes things easier, for others, technology makes things possible”

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Today’s Tech Triumph

Technology can be extremely empowering for any learner. For a student with dyslexia, it can be the difference between confidence and fear, or between failing and thriving.

We are living in a golden age of assistive technology when trends are converging to transform education for the better:

BUT, with so many e-tools out there, things can quickly get confusing, even overwhelming. To help simplify things, below you will find a Parent Primer for dyslexia technology software.

Wait! I Can’t Afford It!

A new tablet, once you add a case and maybe a keyboard, can run into several hundred dollars. That’s pretty steep for most people and out of reach for some. Here are 5 tips for lowering your costs:

1. Ask the school to buy it: If needed, be sure to have assistive tech mentioned in your child’s individual education plan (IEP) and see if your school has the budget for it.
2. Purchase through the school: Schools often get discounts because of their bulk purchasing. They might pass along that discount to parents.
3. Buy a version of hardware that is one generation old: For half the cost or less, you’ll get 90% of the functionality.
4. Buy used: Try Facebook Marketplace, Kijiji or Craigslist to start. You can often get the latest tech at the price of an older model. Buy a used, older model for even steeper savings.
5. Share it: Sometimes each child needs their own, but share where you can.

Still can’t afford it? Check with local charities that might donate or loan what you need. Think this is a pipe dream? Check out this link and think again!

Parent Primer for Assistive Technology

1) What Is Assistive Technology

Very simply, assistive tech is any device or product that can help your child or student achieve things that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to.

Here are some examples of assistive tech and how they might help your child:

2) Things to Consider Before You Buy

Here are 5 things to keep in mind when evaluating an app or piece of hardware:

1. Your child’s needs: Is it reading? Comprehension? Math? Review any educational assessments that have been completed and talk to the school. Also review your child’s individual education plan.
2. Age appropriateness: This is an extension of point #1. Your child may need help with writing but a program like iWordQ would be too advanced for a 5 year old. Younger children in particular need simpler software.
3. App/Hardware Reviews: What are others saying about the application? Read the reviews in the App Store or on Google Play — and check when the app was last updated. An app the maker has abandoned will stop working as phones and tablets update around it.
4. Integration with other apps and hardware: Does it work on the devices your child actually uses, the school Chromebook included? Does it sync between home and school, and does it still work offline when it has to?
5. Cost: Could you get something comparable for free? Start there — the reading, dictation and organization tools now built into phones, tablets and Chromebooks are better than most paid apps were a few years ago. Where a paid tool earns its keep, watch the subscriptions: a few dollars a month, several times over, adds up fast. Hardware remains pricey, but the bang for your buck is still improving dramatically.

3) How to Get the Most Out of Your Purchase

Three things you can do to get more out of your time and money:

1. Give it time to succeed. Change is hard. No matter how good the technology is, be prepared for some resistance at the start. For example, your child may ask: “Why can’t I just use my paper calendar”? Well he could, but e-calendars can remind you of dates that are otherwise forgotten and can help in day-to-day planning. Making the shift will require some perseverance.
2. Learn from others. I have lost count of the number of times I have learned something useful from simply watching someone else use Microsoft Word or Excel. Conversely, I am regularly shocked to see people using laborious work arounds in those same applications when there are elegant fixes at the ready. Shortcut keys, formatting fixes, or just features you don’t use — there is always more under the software hood to learn!
3. Move on. This sounds like a contradiction of #1 above, but it isn’t. There just comes a time to cut your losses if you’re not happy with your purchase. Don’t throw more time at something that has clearly failed. Move on to another app or go back to what worked before.

The New Wave: AI Tools

When the rest of this page was first written, assistive technology meant a toolbox of separate, single-purpose products: one app to read text aloud, another to take dictation, another to check spelling. Artificial intelligence has changed the shape of that toolbox. A single AI tool can now read a chapter aloud in a natural voice, explain the hard paragraph in simpler words, summarize what matters, take dictation that tidies itself up, and then quiz your child on the material — all in one place, and much of it free or close to it.

That makes AI the biggest development in assistive technology since the tablet. It also raises new questions — about school rules, about accuracy, and about where the line sits between help and doing the work. Here is how the pieces fit, and how to use them wisely.

Reading with AI

Text to speech was already in the toolbox above. What AI has changed is the quality of the voices — and how much else the same tools will do while they read.

Writing with AI

For many people with dyslexia, writing is the harder half of literacy — the ideas are there, but spelling and the blank page get in the way. This is where AI may help the most.

Studying with AI

The same chatbots that worry teachers can also act as an endlessly patient study partner — one that explains things five ways, at midnight, without sighing.

AI Built for Dyslexia Itself

One more category bears watching: AI that aims to treat dyslexia rather than work around it. The best-known example is Dysolve, which builds short daily games, generated on the spot and adapted to the child, aimed at the language processing underneath reading. An independently evaluated randomized trial (University of Delaware, 2022–2025) found real gains in standardized reading scores — which is more hard evidence than most products ever produce. Even so, one trial is one trial, and the company’s claims run ahead of the research. File it under promising, and keep proven reading instruction firmly in place while the science catches up.

Using AI Wisely

None of this removes the need for judgement. Six ground rules will keep your family on the right side of the line:

1. Know the school’s rules. They vary, and they are the ones that count. Everywhere, though, handing in AI-written work as your own is academic dishonesty. The uses schools generally accept — brainstorming, outlining, grammar checking, study help — are the ones where the student still does the work.
2. Accommodations are not cheating. Text to speech and dictation written into an IEP are access tools, no different in principle from glasses. If an AI tool belongs in your child’s kit, ask the IEP team to name it specifically in the plan — a tool that is written down is a tool that survives a change of teacher.
3. Check the age limits. The big consumer chatbots set a minimum age of 13, and expect a parent’s permission for teenagers. For younger children, stay with school-provided tools, or tools a parent or teacher mediates, like Khanmigo.
4. Verify what it tells you. AI answers arrive confident whether they are right or wrong, and sometimes they are simply made up. Prefer tools that show their sources, and spot-check anything that matters against the original text.
5. Mind the privacy basics. Don’t paste names, addresses, school details or IEP documents into consumer chatbots. School-issued accounts usually carry stronger privacy protections than free personal ones.
6. Keep the tool in its place. AI removes barriers to the content; it does not replace learning to read, and it is not a substitute for the thinking an assignment was meant to produce. The goal is a student who uses these tools the way a strong adult reader uses them — to get to the ideas faster, then to do their own work with them.

Good Luck and Good Reading!