Gamification as a Supportive Tool for School Children with Dyslexia

Abstract

Gamification, in its nature, combines not only games but also the whole psychological environment. Thanks to this, a properly prepared implementation of gameplaying can encourage people to compete with others and achieve the set tasks and goals. A person feels fulfilled that through his actions has performed a mission or reached a new level. It stimulates them to continue their activity and self-improvement to be better and beat their records. Its advantage is also that it does not have to be limited to one technology or method—it can be realized both through a simple scenario and a corkboard with results, it can also be embedded, e.g., in a virtual or augmented reality. This article focuses on the gamification of dyslexia, a common disorder of developmental disorders among pupils. It affects about 10%–15% of school-age children. The research narrowed the field of the study to one of the aspects of developmental dyslexia—dysorthography and making spelling mistakes by people affected by this disorder. This work aims to present an original application which is using gamification as a supportive tool for the learning of school children with diagnosed dyslexia. The conducted study was based on the implementation of original algorithms and scenarios of gamification on mobile devices, especially smartphones. School children are following a gamification approach for a specified period. As a conclusion, it can be stated that the proposed framework and gamification can help in the learning of people with dyslexia.