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Supporting Special Needs

Category: Diagnostic Analytics

Analytics can identify students with special needs. Tuomi. (2018) reports on the early detection of dyslexia. "A well-published example is the Swedish company 'Lexplore' that has developed a system that quickly scans for students at risk and detects dyslexia by tracking reader eye movements." Similarly, "AI techniques can facilitate early intervention and provide specialists with robust tools indicating the person's autism spectrum disorder level." Special needs analysis can also identify sensory and physical impairments, language or mathematical difficulties, attention deficit disorder (Drigas and Ioannidoun, 2012), and autism (Anagnostopoulou, et.al., 2020).

With detection may also come automated support for special needs. For example, a company called Brainpower supports autistic learners through the use of computerized glasses. (UC Berkeley, 2019) Moreover, one study "found that children with ASD are tend to speak to a robot more than they do with an adult (and another) study has shown that robots can be used to produce positive outcomes in individual therapy of children with severe disabilities through using play methods (Ibid)".

Analytics and AI can also provide direct support for people with accessibility needs. For example, "Tools for image recognition are helping people who are visually impaired better navigate both the internet and the real world" (Access Now, 2018:14). Automated transcription, translation, and sensors are additional forms of accessibility support.

Examples and Articles

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