The intelligent voice assistant developed and distributed by Amazon, Alexahas entered the homes of millions of people around the world, who have appreciated its numerous features and compatibility with different devices, among which stand out the Amazon Echo, speakers which can make managing your home and your daily life much easier.
An extremely useful tool, its potential can be fully appreciated by those suffers from learning disabilities or other problems. Alexa, thanks to its ease of use and the large amount of actions it can perform, proves to be a valid help. Simply say the activation word to be able to ask the assistant to perform actions or tasks.
In particular, those who suffer from dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysorthography or dysgraphia he can find in the voice assistant an ally that allows him to obtain information quickly, that offers support in reading, writing and calculations and that stimulates creativity.
Alexa and Dyslexia, how Amazon’s voice assistant can help
The dyslexia is a specific learning disability, a neurodiversity that causes difficulty reading. Those who suffer from this problem are unable to read fluently, accurately and quickly and this could result in a lack of or incorrect understanding of the text.
To the eye of those who are dyslexic the letters get confused and reversed and this causes reading errors or slowdowns. It generally manifests itself in the early years of school, and can be addressed thanks to specific learning approaches.
In this context, technology can be of great help. Among the tools that allow those with dyslexia to face everyday life with fewer complications and to quickly carry out some tasks there is Alexa, which has some features that prove to be particularly useful.
Alexa has numerous features, some of which are particularly useful for people with frailties
Alexa can read all Kindle ebooks in one’s possession, allowing even those with dyslexia to enjoy reading a novel, a detective story, an essay, an in-depth text or other genres. Through the voice the user can control the reading in detail.
You can ask Alexa to read the title of a specific ebook, to provide more information about the work you are reading, to pause, stop or restart reading at any time, to set a timer to stop the activity at a specific time.
You can then navigate between the chapters of the book and slow down or speed up reading to have an experience that is as satisfying as possible.
Alternatively, with Alexa you can listen to all audiobooks and podcasts on Audible, if you are registered with the service or by asking to read a free title. Also in this case, you can set a timer to stop reading at pre-established times. For example, it is an excellent solution to allow those who listen to audiobooks before falling asleep to easily find the point where they stopped listening.
The reading speed can be set according to the user’s tastes and needs, and you can proceed backwards or forwards navigating between the different chapters of the audiobook.
With Alexa it’s easy stay updated and find the news of the day, even when faced with difficulties with reading. You can receive news, information on local weather and forecasts, obtain summaries and compilations of the most important news.
For news, you can use specific skillsmade available by newspapers or other organizations, or access the news section from the Alexa app by selecting your favorite channel for long-form news or the daily summary to choose sources for shorter updates.
Dyscalculia, the support provided by Alexa
The dyscalculia manifests itself with the difficulty recognizing numbers and carrying out calculation operations quickly, to remember or learn the multiplication tables or to remember the numbers. Both at school age and later, all this represents an obstacle.
Alexa, for those suffering from dyscalculia, is a valid help. It can be used as calculator, communicating verbally the operations he must perform. In just a few seconds, it returns the exact result. But it doesn’t end here.
The voice assistant can be used for review or learn the multiplication tables. It can play a complete one on request or quiz the user by providing the exact result or rewarding them when they provide the correct answer.
Alexa can question the user on the multiplication tables, interacting with him and indicating whether the answer given is correct or incorrect: it is a fun method for learning, also suitable for school-age children
Alexa can be useful for solving the simplest operations or for carrying out more complex ones, which put any adult in difficulty. He’s able to convert each unit of measurement on request.
Alexa support for those suffering from dysorthography or dysgraphia
The dysgraphia it is a motor handwriting disorder that causes difficulty in writing and reproducing alphabetic signs. Those who suffer from this problem tend to write less legibly. The dysorthography is a spelling disorder that causes difficulty in graphic symbolization and errors in writing, such as the omission of letters, parts of the word, inversion or substitution of graphemes and more.
Alexa can support people suffering from dysgraphia and dysorthographia facilitating and automating some activities. It allows you to save memos, create notes of different lengths, shopping or wish lists and much more.
For further information: Alexa at the service of vulnerable people