About the Founder- Cally's Story
I always knew I was different. Reading and writing did not come naturally to me. My school system did not offer early screening for learning based language disorders. By second grade, my parents saw signs and were concerned. Teachers and administrators kept insisting I was "fine" and would "catch up" but I never did. After much frustration, at the beginning of my 5th grade year, my parents paid for me to be formally assessed by a neuropsychologist. That when I learned I had dyslexia, dysgraphia and ADHD. The most shocking find in the report was that I was in 5th grade reading at a first grade level and couldn't write a sentence! Resources for dyslexia were non-existent in my school. Once a week one on one time with a teacher was not enough to bring a student up to grade level. What was available was extremely expensive arduous private programs outside of school. The learning at the program was one sized fits all with constant drills. Nevertheless, my desperate parents signed me up. Then Covid happened.
Schools soon shut down for over a year and the learning all shifted to online including my expensive dyslexia remediation. I felt alone and it was frustrating. The tutoring wasn't adaptive. Constant cue cards and nonsense words. It was miserable and I spent months in tears as I struggled to learn. My self esteem had taken a hit over the years but I was determined to learn to read. I progressed enough in the remediation during quarantine for my parents to enroll me in a rigorous mainstream school where I started to write full blown papers while getting A's. My learning disability will always be a part of me. But power comes in knowing I am not alone. One in 5 students has a language based learning disability. People from different socioeconomic backgrounds have the same rate of dyslexia. Unfortunately kids from more economically challenged homes don't have access to often expensive private remediation resources. This is where groundbreaking AI technology can make a difference.
Dyslexic students using AI technology can catch up to and even surpass their peers in reading and writing. The best part is that AI remediation is economic, cheaper than traditional remediation and more democratic...accessible to anyone with a smart phone or computer. AI allows adaptability instead of a cookie cutter approach to remediation, cutting down on the frustration dyslexic kids feel when learning.
Cally's Mission
New technology is changing what it looks and feels like to be dyslexic. The Recent developments in AI inspired me to found DyslexAI. Our goal is to educate students, parents and teachers on new AI based dyslexia remediation technologies. We also advocate for AI programs to be built into school budgets. It is our goal that every dyslexic student is given the tools to be able to read and write fluently, allowing them the change to reach their potential and leading to a lifetime of success.