Owen Barden of the Centre for Culture & Disability Studies at Liverpool Hope University recently published a paper that says, contrary to what you might assume, that Facebook use can actually help kids who struggle with dyslexia overcome their literary challenges in a number of ways. Sounds strange, right? The entirely text-based format of Facebook (and most other social media) would seem like a hurdle for a kid who has trouble with reading and writing.
But as Barden explains in his research paper, children with reading difficulties actually flock toward Facebook’s text-based format:
Because dyslexia usually is defined in terms of significant difficulties with literacy, we might reasonably anticipate that the participants would see Facebook as stigmatising rather than levelling the playing field, because of the very public literacy events that it demands. However, the data indicate that far from shying away from Facebook because of fear of their difficulties with literacy being exposed, the participants enthusiastically embraced it. The students saw Facebook as a desirable presence in their education, one that supported inclusion.
via Gizmodo
