Thank you Joanna for those great insights. This seems worth posting as a blog entry...! -Steve
----- q•b ----- > On Apr 7, 2017, at 08:10, Joanna Leng <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hello, > > I am dyslexic! :-) > > Dyslexia is a polymorphic condition that affects more than just reading and > writing and is thought to be caused by poor short term memory, where short > term memory is the length of time it takes to turn a key in a lock or less. A > common analogy is the CPU is good but the buffering on I/O is not good enough > to keep up with the CPU. For example it would be like having a > keyboard or scanner with a buffering system that mixed up input or output and > sometimes lost characters. This would also make it difficult to rapidly > change from reading to writing and explains why doing things like reading, > writing, listening, speaking and transcribing at the same time are more > difficult for a dyslexic than a non-dyslexic. I think this can make software > carpentry a difficult way for a dyslexic to learn how to write programs as it > requires multi-tasking a variety of activities that are separately quite hard > for a dyslexic but which are rapidly changed to and from. > > On top of this nearly half dyslexics have another condition, visual stress > that 10% of non-dyslexics also have. People with this condition do not handle > the high contrast of a white background with black text well. There are > indeed fonts that are considered good for dyslexics, they tend to be similar > to the Arial and Helvetica fonts but they have very slightly more spacing > between the letters. > > In my opinion dyslexics benefit from spending more time setting up their > environment and understanding/documenting what they have done. Setting up an > environment means getting everything so that it is working technically as it > should as well as setting up fonts and background colours on their > preferences. They will be slow to read and so configure the system on their > own, especially if programming is new and they do not understand the > vocabulary. If they have to do this at the start of a course they may well > fail to ever catch up with the class. I think they would benefit from being > offered help the day or week before to set up their environment. > > Dyslexic are also more likely, especially initially, to like text editors > that open up in their own window rather than one that takes over their shell. > They are unlekely to remember ho to spell things that are in the shell and > will have to keep on opening and closing the text editor to get the sytax and > spelling right. This will disrupt learning. > > A dyslexic will have to repeat and practice more than a non-dyslexic, they > are less capable of surface learning and will need to deep learn. This will > take time and they may prefer to work at their own speed and repeat concepts > and exercises. It may be good to have a summary of what you will learn at the > beginning, then exercises and then another summary at the end. There is a > fair amount of evidence that some dyslexics are not good at multiple choice > exercises so self-assessments which have multiple choices are not good. > > Having one consistent reference text book for an entire programming language > maybe helpful as this lays out all parts of the language in one place so that > the learner can go back and identify areas they do not know over the first > few years of using that language and so gradually fill in the gaps. I have > seen some short programs that are the length of a page in a text book that > can be used to document the main parts of syntax used in a language. These > are good reference for the main syntax and functionality of a language. The > classic example program is a program where the user inputs a radius and the > program uses a function or class to calculate the area of the circle with > that radius. > > A dyslexic will probably benefit from being able to ask lots of questions and > chatting about programming - social learning. They should try to get one or > more technical mentors who they can go to with niggling questions. > > I hope this helps > Joanna > >> On 04/04/2017 15:46, Neal Davis wrote: >> I don't have experience with this. >> >> With that caveat in mind, I am aware that some work has been done towards >> dyslexic-friendly typefaces, such as http://opendyslexic.org/. These weight >> the font deliberately to increase recognizability. This is worth trying >> with coding to see if it helps, at least anecdotally for now. >> >> Sincerely, >> Neal Davis >> Teaching Assistant Professor · Department of Computer Science >> 2229 Siebel Center · 201 North Goodwin Avenue, MC-258 · Urbana, IL >> 61801-2302 >> 217·244·4181 >> >> 2017-04-03 8:20 GMT-05:00 C. Titus Brown <[email protected]>: >>> Hi all, >>> >>> at the JGI User Meeting two weeks ago, I met someone who wanted some advice >>> and/or lessons on learning to code while dyslexic. Any resources or >>> opinions would be welcome - I don’t know that I’ve heard it discussed by >>> any of the Carpentry folk or in the context of lesson design. >>> Curious! >>> >>> (E-mail me privately if you’d like a summary of what I find.) >>> >>> thanks, >>> —titus >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Discuss mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> http://lists.software-carpentry.org/listinfo/discuss >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.software-carpentry.org/listinfo/discuss > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.software-carpentry.org/listinfo/discuss
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