At the June 2019 Accessibility Talks online meetup, Jeannette Washington, founder of Bearly Articulating, spoke about dyslexia, its misconceptions, strengths, and shared helpful resources.
Washington is from our local metro Detroit area, so I’m thrilled to recap her presentation.
You can watch the captioned 30-minute video below or, if you prefer, read my takeaways from Washington’s presentation.
Takeaways from What’s Dyslexia Got To Do With It
- Dyslexia comes from two Greek words: dys means difficulty and lexia means language. It can relate to reading, writing, and spelling.
- Did you know dyslexia affects one in five people around the world? It represents 80-90 percent of everyone with learning disabilities.
- Dyslexia is a spectrum, people are affected by different degrees.
- Developed and designed for people with dyslexia, the Dyslexie font makes learning and working easier. Available as a downloadable font, text editor, and Chrome extension.
- Programmers with dyslexia need three things: Internet filters, page simplifiers, and syntax checkers
- Internet filters limit access you have to websites. Example: NetNanny.
- Page simplifier, like Firefox Simplify Page, strips away clutter like buttons, ads from a website and help you stay focused. Originally intended for creating print version of a page, Simplify Page option is in the Print Preview dialog.
- Syntax checkers: some are embedded in integrated development environments (IDE) programmers use.
- Users with dyslexia need three things: contrasting colors, text magnifiers, and screen readers.
- Contrasting colors create complimentary color pairs, helpful for people with low vision.
- Text magnifiers helpful for people with low vision, astigmatism.
- For work, people with dyslexia face challenges from applying (wordy applications are difficult to understand) to interviewing (reading and acting upon a challenge).
- As an interviewer, consider what steps you can take to make the process easier. Showcase creative challenges and performance based task.
- If you have dyslexia, know that you are not alone. Many well-known successful people have dyslexia, including Tim Tebow, Jennifer Aniston, and Steve Jobs.
- What can you do? Learn about dyslexia, learn what works best for your situation. Advocate for those who have dyslexia.
Shoutout to Donna Bungard for hosting the June 2019 online Accessibility Talks event.
Mark your calendar for upcoming Accessibility Talks meetups. Follow @a11ytalks on Twitter to learn when the next online talk will be held.
