Dissertation: Analysing audio and visual technology to support students with learning difficulties
With technology advancing drastically in the last years, it has found use in various sectors of everyday life. Technology has found a specific niche in education in educational disciplines such as mathematics, languages and art. In addition to this, technology has also been used in another important sector of education, that of helping students with learning difficulties.
Students with learning difficulties can benefit from assistive technology and receive better education delivery. The objective of this study is to exploit smart devices and develop a prototype application to assist secondary level students with learning difficulties during their education. This study aims to provide alternative use to smart devices such as smart phones and tablets. The use of such instruments seems an ideal way to give new life to these devices. If the prototype would turn out to be successful, it will be utilised by students with learning difficulties in order to see whether they can learn more and reduce their struggle.
Various assistive technologies were eventually researched to determine how such technology supports students with learning difficulties and what kind of help it can offer. This study demonstrated various benefits; some benefits were common to all students while others varied according to the student’s particular needs. The most prominent benefit was that students were able to read or follow material more easily. Apart from this, students with learning difficulties were able to read words with more ease after these words were repeated. The results demonstrated that audio and visual technology implemented through smart devices of technology is a great asset and can help students with learning difficulties in their studies.