I-Corps: Spatial computing learning system for early literacy development

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a new method for children with language-based learning disabilities (dyslexia) to practice early literacy skills with an augmented reality system. Approximately fifteen percent of children and adults have dyslexia, a language-based learning disability that makes it difficult to read, write, and spell, no matter how hard the person tries or how intelligent he or she is. Conventional remediation therapies include systematic phonics-based instruction or a highly trained speech-language therapist. Computerized therapies offer more intensive instruction at lower costs, but existing programs do not fully address the social-emotional anxieties seen among children with dyslexia or language-based learning disabilities. The proposed method offers personalized, automated interaction, along with an interactive curriculum This I-Corps project is based on the development of a multi-sensory learning loop within a spatial computing system (augmented reality) for end-users (children) to practice the structured literacy approach on mobile devices. Informed by research suggesting that playing 3D-platform video games has been shown to promote grey matter in the hippocampus region of the brain among young adults and behavioral improvements occur among children with developmental dyslexia after reading intervention, this technological method uses 3-dimensional game objects and touch inputs from the end-user to stimulate motivation, emotion, learning and memorization of the structured literacy approach within a spatial computing system. These principles, which includes English phonology-phonics, morphology, grammar rules and syntax are transformed into 3D game objects and embedded within the virtual simulation model where the end-user interacts and manipulates these objects, thus providing a new method to practice the early literacy skills.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.