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Dyslexia and learning computer programming

Published: 28 June 2004 Publication History

Abstract

This poster explores some of the issues associated with teaching computer science to students with dyslexia. Issues associated with both student learning generally and computer science specifically are considered. The accessibility of teaching materials made available through virtual learning environments (VLEs) is addressed. Twelve resulting guidelines particularly relevant to students with dyslexia are outlined. More specifically to computer science, the issues associated with programming are explored through the development of a mapping of the features of dyslexia to the tasks involved in writing a computer program. Preliminary evidence, from both the wider dyslexia community with computer programming experience and some early interview results, are presented to both support the mapping and draw out other important issues.This poster describes results generated from a LTSN-ICS Development Fund project, entitled 'Impact of Learning Disability on the Study of Computing'. This project seeks to investigate the impact of learning disabilities on students who are following a course of study in the computing curriculum. It looked at how best to deliver materials through the University's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and then focused on issues surrounding students with dyslexia and computer programming.The introduction of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act [1] and the Disability Discrimination Act part IV [2] provides an opportunity and incentive to review teaching and learning methods and see how the needs of the students with special needs are addressed. In the case of a computing department, this should include general aspects, for example accessible provision of e-resources, and also domain specific aspects, for example programming. This poster looks at both of these aspects.Leeds Metropolitan University (Leeds Met.) is a large (37,000 students) university of applied learning, with a policy of widening access to higher education. The School of Computing has approximately 1,500 students enrolled on a variety of HND and degree programmes, of these on average 20 are registered as dyslexic at any given time. This is in line with the occurrence of dyslexia across the University as a whole and the general higher education student population, 1.2 per cent to 1.5 per cent [3]. There is, then, a substantial and persistent number of individuals that require support within the school.The poster begins by outlining the sources of standards and guidelines relating to the provision of accessible Web based and e-learning materials and then highlights those considered particularly pertinent to students with dyslexia. It then focuses in on specific issues associated with computer programming and dyslexia. In order to do this, first the features of dyslexia, both negative and positive, are outlined. A model of the processes involved in computer programming is then proposed. This allows an interaction matrix of the features of dyslexia and the process stages of computer programming to be developed. Preliminary evidence is then presented from correspondents of a Dyslexia e-mail forum, which supports the interaction matrix and raises additional issues. The results of an interview with a Computer Science student with dyslexia are also presented.This poster is based on earlier work [4,5].

References

[1]
SENDA, Special Educational Needs and Disability Act, in Chapter 10. 2001.
[2]
DDA, Disability Discrimination Act, in Chapter 50. 1995.
[3]
The Singleton Report, Dyslexia in Higher Education: Policy, Provision and Practice. 1999: Report of the National Working Party on Dyslexia in Higher Education, Funded by HEFCE and SHEFC.
[4]
Powell, N.J., D. Moore, J. Gray, J. Finlay, and J. Reaney. Dyslexia and Learning Computer Programming. in 4th LTSN-ICS Annual Conference Proceedings. 2003. Galway: LTSN-ICS.
[5]
Powell, N.J., D. Moore, J. Gray, J. Finlay, and J. Reaney, Dyslexia and Learning Computer Programming. ITALICS (Innovations in Teaching And Learning in Information and Computer Sciences, 2004. (In Reference).

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Published In

cover image ACM SIGCSE Bulletin
ACM SIGCSE Bulletin  Volume 36, Issue 3
September 2004
280 pages
ISSN:0097-8418
DOI:10.1145/1026487
Issue’s Table of Contents
  • cover image ACM Conferences
    ITiCSE '04: Proceedings of the 9th annual SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
    June 2004
    296 pages
    ISBN:1581138369
    DOI:10.1145/1007996
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 28 June 2004
Published in SIGCSE Volume 36, Issue 3

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  1. computer programming
  2. dyslexia

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  • (2022)Game Design, Gender and Personalities in Programming EducationFrontiers in Computer Science10.3389/fcomp.2022.8249954Online publication date: 8-Feb-2022
  • (2022)Mapping the Problem-Solving Strategies of Novice Programmers to Polya’s Framework: SWOT Analysis as a Bottleneck Identification ToolICT Education10.1007/978-3-030-95003-3_9(132-148)Online publication date: 19-Jan-2022
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