AI Powered Screening Aid for Dyslexic Children in Tamil

Dyslexia is a learning disorder characterized with a difficulty in learning due to impairment of the left hemisphere of the brain associated with processing. In India, the incidence of dyslexia is believed to be around 15%. Literacy is the foundation of all learning and hence, identifying dyslexia at an early age is critical. The appropriate age to identify dyslexia is between 5 and 8 years since early detection can nurture corrective measures. Identifying dyslexia at this age will also prevent future school drop outs. The major challenge in detecting dyslexia among children at an early age includes lack of awareness among school teachers and parents. The absence of simple standardized screening and assessment tools in regional languages makes the task more difficult. A Smartphone application to screen dyslexia offers the advantages of universal use and standardization. However, primary school educators feel the need to have screening apps in regional languages (like Tamil), as most of the communication in local population is using regional language. In this research work, a Smartphone based screening application for dyslexia is developed in Tamil. The app consists of questions that cover the areas of general qualities, health & personality, unique talents, speech & hearing skills, visual acuity& reading skills, writing & motor skills, mathematical ability and memory & cognitive skills. The app was created utilizing the expertise of special educators and following regional practices. The app generates visualizations and provides scoring on the severity level of dyslexia for the user. The report can be downloaded and printed. Then the dataset is subjected to training with five different machine learning algorithms and results are compared by their report of classification and error rates.