Introduction of Dyslexia

Dyslexia（Dyslexia、reading disorder、alexia）, also known as reading disorder or alexia, is a condition that impairs reading and spelling due to the brain's inability to coordinate the processing of visual and auditory information.

 

It affects individuals' ability to comprehend information they see and hear, as well as their brain's ability to connect information from different parts. The condition can manifest in various ways, including challenges with spoken and written language, coordination, self-control, and concentration. These effects could result in delayed completion of homework and hindered ability to learn reading, writing, and mathematics.



Also, most teaching and learning styles that are commercially available are not immune to varying degrees and intensities of reading difficulties. Consequently, individuals with dyslexia, both children and adults, encounter obstacles in acquiring knowledge about science, biology, and synthetic biology, impeding their learning process compared to individuals without dyslexia.



Approximately 20% of the global population experiences dyslexia to varying degrees. Dyslexia is a lifelong condition, but targeted intervention training can reduce its effects, enabling individuals to adapt to work and studies. Despite the vast amount of available data, the majority of individuals with dyslexia still encounter obstacles in learning STEM subjects.

Interviews about Dyslexia-related knowledge

In order to be able to explore this disorder and the related ways of dealing with it more deeply, our team approached Ms. Tian Lin, a national second-level psychotherapist, and had a series of dyslexia-related science and knowledge interviews with her. Tian Lin, Intermediate Psychotherapist. Ms. Tian has a Master's Degree in Psychology and graduated from the School of Psychology of Shaanxi Normal University, with a research interest in psychological theory and application. ms Tian mentioned that she had been very committed to helping solve the dyslexia problem that is currently prevalent amongst children, as this problem afflicts so many people. ms Tian discussed with us in greater depth the definition of learning disabilities, the etiology of learning disabilities, the categorization of learning disabilities and their clinical manifestations, assessment and diagnosis, as well as the related education and education programs. assessment and diagnosis, and related educational support. From the interviews, we learned that the prevalence of specific learning disabilities in academic areas such as reading, writing, and math ranges from 5-15% across languages and cultures, and emphasized that the disorders are most prevalent during the school years. Common symptoms such as difficulty in hearing, e.g. How old are you, How are you? At the same time, Ms. Tian also mentioned a new potential problem, which is the lack of awareness of dyslexia among the population. Not only that, but the families of these patients and the patients themselves are often not aware of the existence of the disorder and are unable to identify themselves or their family members as having the disorder through their behavior.



Ms. Tian also emphasized to us that it is important to distinguish between dyslexia and poor academic performance due to mental retardation. Patients in this category usually have a strong sense of spatial awareness in order to compensate for their deficits. Not only that, but many of the patients are extremely intelligent, including even genius types. The likes of Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, and John F. Kennedy were all considered to be "dumb kids" with extremely low grades as children, but scientists eventually discovered that they were all typical examples of dyslexia. As Ms Tian mentioned, dyslexics are not stupid, but in a sense geniuses, these people are more creative, so we want to help them, so that they have the same access to knowledge as ordinary people, unobstructed channels, to give them the wings of their dreams. 



After the presentation, Ms. Tian also listened to our team's introduction that we want to help people with dyslexia, and suggested that we could interview a few patients with dyslexia, so that we can better understand the learning difficulties they encountered based on Amway, and help them better. At the same time, the importance of dyslexia, as she mentioned before, caught our team's attention.

Questionaire - people's awareness of dyslexia

Our team has created questionnaires that focus primarily on people's concerns and perceptions about dyslexia (100-150 people)



Analysis of the Dyslexia Questionnaire

This questionnaire was filled out by a sample of 202 respondents.

Our online questionnaire response users covered most of the people in China's provinces and cities, and we obtained the people's awareness of dyslexia as a disease in a sample of 202 surveys. The following is an analysis of the results we obtained.

Q1： How much do you know about dyslexia?

The analysis of the questionnaire shows that only 6.93% of the respondents know a lot about dyslexia, while 93.07% of the respondents know something about the disease, and 93.07% of the respondents have heard of the disease and don't know anything about it, and the proportion of those who have heard of the disease and don't know anything about it is the highest in the period. It can be analyzed that the public's knowledge about dyslexia is generally low, and the disease has not received widespread attention.

Q2: How did you learn about dyslexia?

This question counted the percentage of different ways people learned about dyslexia. The results are as follows, 52.97% of the population learned about dyslexia through the internet/social media channels, while 38.12% never learned anything about dyslexia. 28.71% learned about dyslexia from traditional information dissemination tools such as books or newspapers. Again, this shows that only a small number of people continue to use traditional ways of learning about information. 31.19% learned about it from talking to people. Finally, this shows that the Internet is a very good way of disseminating information because the number of people who use the Internet to learn information is the highest.

 



Q3： Which ideas about dyslexia do you think are correct    

This question reflects people's perception and understanding of dyslexia. The results are as follows, half of the people believe that dyslexia is relatively rare. 34.16% believe that people with dyslexia are simply lazier for their own reasons. Another 42.57% believe that dyslexia is directly related to intelligence. 34.16% believe that dyslexia can be completely cured. These are all incorrect perceptions of dyslexia. This shows that a large number of people have some misconceptions about dyslexia, and it also shows that the publicity and education of dyslexia is not thorough among the general public. However, 55.94% of people chose the correct option - that dyslexia can be improved through intervention and training. However, many of them also chose other incorrect answers。

 



Q4： Are you dyslexic   

This question reflects people's perception and assessment of whether they have dyslexia or not. Only 6.93% of the people thought that they had dyslexia. 49.5% did not think that they had any dyslexia. 43.56% were not very sure if they had dyslexia. In this way, it reflects that the majority of people consider themselves to have any dyslexia.


 

 

 



Q5： Which of the following do you have     

This question describes the manifestations of concentrated dyslexia. Only 16.34% of them do not have any of the above manifestations, and in this way it can be seen that most people have some manifestations of dyslexia. For example, 38.61% of people will suddenly not know where they are reading while reading, and also 27.72% of people will feel emotional tension while reading. Similarly, 38.61% will need to use their fingers to assist them in reading, and 36.63% will reverse the order of words while reading. In addition, 41.09% will add or subtract words from the reading text while reading, 48.02% will not be able to comprehend the meaning of the text, 38.61% will tend to forget the text soon after reading it, and 26.73% will have difficulty in expressing themselves in writing and will be extremely slow in copying. This reflects the fact that many people show some signs of dyslexia, but combined with the previous questionnaire about whether they have dyslexia or not, it can be seen that most people are not without dyslexia, but rather, they do not know that they have dyslexia or do not understand dyslexia, which leads to their own misjudgement of whether they have dyslexia or not.

Q6： When did you first develop these conditions    

This question describes at what age people began to develop these conditions of dyslexia in themselves. 39.11% of people developed dyslexia from a young age, which is the largest number of people of any age group. It can be seen that dyslexia is present at a very young age and starts affecting these people.23.76% of the people developed these conditions after middle school.22.28% of the people developed these conditions during high school. Similarly, 14.85 of the blades developed these symptoms in adulthood. This shows that there are people at every age who gradually develop dyslexia.

 

Q7： What is your attitude towards dyslexia?    

This question mainly reflects how much importance people give to dyslexia. Only 12.87% of the people took the issue of dyslexia very seriously. The remaining 87.13% of people either generally or not give much importance to the issue of dyslexia. Among them, 44.55% of them generally give importance to this issue, which is also the highest percentage. Similarly, 42.57% do not give importance to this issue. This is a visual representation of the fact that most of the people do not give importance to the issue of dyslexia. It also reflects the indifference of the society towards dyslexia.

 

 

Q8： Are you aware of any child counseling agencies where you can seek advice on issues such as dyslexia?     

This question asked the general public whether they were aware of organizations that could intervene early or avoid dyslexia. Only 23.76% of the respondents were aware of the availability of counseling on dyslexia in child counseling facilities. 76.24% were unaware that child psychological counseling agencies can consult on these issues. So again, this shows that even though some people are aware of their own or their children's dyslexia problems, they do not know of any place where they can get counseling and treatment for this problem. This is also a reflection of society's neglect and lack of education about dyslexia.

Q9： Why do you think dyslexia is not taken seriously by parents?

This question describes the perceived reasons why dyslexia is not noticed and taken seriously by parents. 57.43% believe that state agencies do not pay enough attention to the effects of dyslexia on students. 71.78% believe that parents are not aware of the dangers of dyslexia on their children, and again, this is the most popularly agreed upon reason. 69.31% believe that dyslexia is not taught effectively enough in society. Lastly, 60.89% also feel that learning does not have one-on-one instruction for these dyslexic students. This is a great indication that dyslexia is not taken seriously in society.

Phonecall interviews with people who have dyslexia

In order to get a better understanding of dyslexic people, their symptoms and their needs, we found people with dyslexia to interview. The interviews focused on the patients' views on the condition and how it affects their daily lives. For example, whether they can behave like normal people, whether it affects their integration into society, their studies and so on. Since there are some obstacles to communicate with dyslexics in terms of language organization, language comprehension and especially typing as a way to communicate socially, the interviews were conducted over the phone. The following are the results of the interviews.

Respondent 1

 

28 years old (self-reported), female, with less than a bachelor's degree

Respondent (slow pace of communication, inaccurate control of intonation, contains fragmented and illogical information; narrative timeline is confusing)

Below is summary of contents mentioned in the phone call



1 Symptoms of dyslexia have been present in primary and secondary school as far as I can remember, but it has only become a real concern in recent years (narrow information channels in the past; parents and myself were not aware of it)



2 Extremely insensitive to phonics even as an adult; unable to read out loud the words I read



3 When reading, need to use a ruler to compare line by line to be able to continue reading; often unable to find the beginning and end of a sentence



4 Lacks spelling skills; may reverse the structure of words.



5 Can easily miss key words and information when reading text, making it difficult to understand (missing key predicates, objects, etc.)



6 Cannot make sense of sentence structure, word order, etc., leading to confusion in expression.



7 Can't look up words in a dictionary, can't recognize radicals, and has no sensitivity to pinyin.



8 Slow in reading, very high error rate in reading comprehension questions; also has difficulty in math.



9 Difficulty in grasping the rules of pronunciation when learning English, as well as frequent confusion of letters that cannot be detected even after careful checking (a and e and o, w and N, and some symmetrical letters such as b, d, p, q, etc.)



10 Has caused moderate emotional problems (discrimination, performance problems, communication problems, etc.): low self-esteem, loss of self-confidence, inner loneliness, anxiety, etc.



11 Currently, communication problems in daily life still need to be solved, requiring the other person to express himself/herself clearly, with a slightly louder voice, slower speech, and often not being able to understand long sentences.



12 The number of friends around is not large; facing relatives and sometimes being discriminated against in the society. 







SOLUTIONS:

- Utilize text-reading tools, audiobooks, etc., which can be helpful when turned on at a slow speed; or someone else to help read aloud



- Seek psychotherapy and professional intervention to address psychological barriers.



- Use comics, videos, etc. (to learn about art, etc.) to help with comprehension barriers on a visual level.

 

Respondent 2

 

Age undisclosed, female, bachelor's degree

Respondent (this person speaks more easily than the previous one, with a calm tone of voice, able to construct a basic timeline, but the logic of expression still has obvious gaps, ambiguities, etc. (inconsistencies in the narrative and a weak view of time and space, which is more similar to the first respondent))



Below is summary of contents mentioned in the phone call



1 Perceived symptoms since childhood, but only became aware of dyslexia and (claimed to be) diagnosed in the last few years (former parents' suppressive upbringing, intolerance, mistrust; former narrow access to information; discrimination, etc.).



2 Reading is very taxing and frustrating, and often results in fatigue, frustration, and inability to concentrate - leading directly to emotional problems, mood swings, low self-esteem, self-depreciation, etc. - typical ADHD symptom.



3. Hand shakes when writing strokes, writes in a crooked, misshapen manner, unable to recognize the basic structure of Chinese characters.



4 Difficulty in memorizing, need to slowly copy down the memorized words over and over again.



5 Learned to speak late and lacks phonemic awareness- e.g. insensitive to rhyming words in poems and lyrics, unable to differentiate between them



6 Lack of spelling skills in both phonics and English- lack of spelling skills

 

Reading:

Repeatedly read but still cannot understand, especially long sentences and passages (can understand each word but not the whole sentence; reads the last sentence and forgets the first one, etc.) - Typical ADHD Symptoms (Additional Notes - Dyslexia can lead to a number of problems, including: Learning Difficulties. Since reading is the foundation for most other academic subjects, children with dyslexia are at a disadvantage in most classrooms and may have difficulty catching up with their classmates. Social problems. If left untreated, dyslexia can lead to lower self-esteem, behavioral problems, anxiety disorders, aggression, and withdrawal from friends, parents, and teachers. Adult problems. The inability to read and comprehend can prevent children from reaching their potential as they grow up. This can have long-term negative educational, social and economic consequences. Children with dyslexia are at increased risk of developing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and vice versa.ADHD causes difficulty in maintaining attention. It can also lead to hyperactivity and impulsive behavior, which can make dyslexia more difficult to treat.)

Frequent involuntary line-skipping and an inability to read books with poorly spaced words (as well as line spacing)



Inability to perceive implied tones in text when reading to gauge emotions and access implied information - e.g., inability to recognize key words that express emphases, transition, innuendo, etc.

 

The overall impact on daily life is not significant and communication barriers are slowly being eliminated; the impact on former students is more significant, as they were discriminated against by teachers and people around them, causing emotional problems and poor mental health; affecting parent-child relationships and family atmosphere; affecting grades, etc.

 

Relevant solutions or effective mitigation options

solutions:

- Special devices, fonts, etc. can be utilized. 

- Audiobooks, comics, videos, etc. to help understanding.

- Seek professional help to relieve stress and solve emotional problems and mental disorders.

- Finding opportunities to practice communication skills during the day

Online InInterviews to gather more information

Not only that, we also contacted several patients online who mentioned that they had dyslexia, and asked them how they discovered their dyslexia in their daily lives. And how I feel some obstacles because of this disease. Our team members also asked how they could use some methods or tools to alleviate the inconveniences they encountered in receiving and receiving some learning knowledge. Below are relevant answers and solutions to dyslexia from multiple patients.

During the inquiry process, most of these patients mentioned the inconveniences they encountered due to dyslexia when they were in school, and most of them focused on receiving equal education. This strengthened our team’s belief that dyslexia is a disease that deeply affects this group of people and traps them from the time they start learning from textbooks, conversations and lectures.

At the same time, in the process of asking about some of the solutions they used, our team keenly targeted two key words-"picture" and "listening". Because there are difficulties in reading, we have found new ways to use other senses and ways of thinking to display knowledge. After repeated confirmation by us, we are convinced that it can effectively help this group of people better integrate into an equal educational environment.

Summary of findings

Through the above results, our team discovered the following issues. These mainly include:

People with dyslexia do not receive equal education;

There are not a few people suffering from this disease;

Not only that, people are not very aware of this disease and this group of people, and the group attention is very low;

There are common misunderstandings about this disease - for example: It is believed that people with dyslexia are lazy and do not study well, rather than being unable to study.

Myth about smart dumb kids - People with dyslexia generally have good spatial imagination

The most important thing is that there are currently not many methods popularized to overcome the difficulty of learning knowledge.

Vomic - Voice Comic

Based on the above summary of results obtained from various channels, we are committed to working on solutions to alleviate many of the above-mentioned negative phenomena caused by this disease. Our team decided to change the book content into pictures, combine them with sounds, and finally display them as audio comics.

In order to allow people with dyslexia to receive equal scientific education, we began to implement this plan and publish original audio picture books on our team's official account. We used Mendel's pea experiment as the theme and drew an audio cartoon. Through cartoons, Mendel's experimental process and what he derived from the pea experiment about recessive genes and dominant genes are very story-telling. Knowledge about genes and hybridization is presented through drawings. We then added dubbing explanations to each page of the original comics, so that people with dyslexia can combine vision and hearing in the process of learning biological knowledge and promote better understanding.

Expert Interviews - Finding Effective Interventions

After that, our team members once again extended an interview invitation to Teacher Tian Lin, a national second-level psychological counselor and intermediate psychotherapist and a member of the Children and Adolescent Growth and Development Health Center, hoping that she could give us more suggestions and intervention reading Different angles of the disorder. Ms. Tian mentioned that the fundamental problems in education caused by dyslexia are not only based on the patient or the disease itself. The public, especially the parents of dyslexia patients, are very familiar with and take this disease seriously. To a large extent, it affects whether patients can alleviate or even get rid of the obstacles caused by this disease in receiving equal scientific education in the future. Ms. Tian said: “If the child’s parents are unable to realize that their child may have dyslexia, they cannot receive scientific education equally as other children in the learning group, and they choose to ignore the child’s symptoms in the early stages, or even ignore their child’s dyslexia. If a child is regarded as a "lazy smart child", it will greatly affect the patient, causing the disease to fail to be treated or even worsen.

Voices of people with dyslexia

We also gathered the voices of people with dyslexia. During discussions and inquiries, they mentioned the importance of being able to reduce prejudices and misconceptions about people with dyslexia. At the same time, they also express the hurt caused by the pressure and negative emotions caused by not being valued and understood by many people. Finally, the importance of positive encouragement from others to face the disease and overcome the inequalities in science education caused by dyslexia is emphasized. Many people with dyslexia hope to be taken seriously, not to be misunderstood, and to be given positive guidance and encouragement. How important it is.

To sum up, Ms. Tian and the voices of many dyslexic patients made our team realize the importance of another intervention method, not only from the patients themselves, but also from the people around the patients, and even the public. Interventions should be made based on attitude and understanding of the disease, so as to better help these patients. On the one hand, it allows the public (including people around the patient) to correctly understand this disease, notice abnormalities as early as possible during the patient's early school years, and better help the patient, thereby overcoming or better intervening with dyslexia, and thus better to receive equal scientific education; on the other hand, let these people give positive encouragement and support to patients with dyslexia. Such positive energy can help them work harder to overcome this difficulty, instead of blindly denying themselves. In the end, they can receive the same scientific education as others, be able to study and delve into the scientific subjects they love, and pursue their dreams. The stage shines brightly.

External intervention - Publish posts to popularize dyslexia

Our team created its own public account and began publishing popular science articles related to dyslexia on the market. We hope that through this method, we can increase the public's correct understanding of dyslexia, play an effective role in popularizing science, and increase our influence. On large social media platforms such as official accounts, publicize information about the disease, including the correct way to understand the disease, its causes, manifestation characteristics, correction of common misunderstandings, and intervention methods. In this way, more public groups can be aware of the existence of this disease, reduce the negative psychological impact on some patients who are suffering from dyslexia, and give more attention and care.

In addition, based on Ms. Tian’s suggestions and the voices of dyslexic patients, we also posted relevant information on how to help dyslexic patients learn science normally, as well as some effective intervention and treatment methods for this disease. In the article, we emphasized the importance of psychological understanding, care and encouragement for patients to more actively cooperate with intervention and overcome difficulties. In this way, dyslexics can be taken seriously as early as possible, and they will not be misunderstood as "lazy", smart children who "don't like to learn", or "stupid children" who can't learn anything, but as "stupid children" who can't learn anything. Be encouraged that when encountering difficulties in learning scientific knowledge, there are effective ways to avoid and overcome some obstacles.

Our team has produced a PPT focused on synthetic biology in order to enrich our offline education activities and enable participants to have a deeper understanding of the basic concepts and practical applications of synthetic biology. This PPT is not only educational, but also suitable for learners of different levels. We hope that through such educational activities, we can stimulate everyone's interest and exploration spirit in synthetic biology. At the same time, we are also very willing to share this PPT, hoping that it can provide support for other teams’ education and promotion activities in the future. We believe that through continued sharing and collaboration, we can jointly promote the application and development of synthetic biology in a wider range of fields.

Here is our PPT

Introduction to Synthetic Biology_ Personalized education for people with dyslexi

Questionnaire

Every member of our team very much hopes that our efforts will have a certain impact and can help the dyslexic group, alleviate the learning difficulties caused by dyslexia, and provide them with equal access to science education. Go one step further. In order to better hear everyone's feedback on our efforts, we have adopted the form of a questionnaire, hoping to be able to collect the most intuitive feedback from the audience - especially those with dyslexia, and retain the authenticity of our activities. advantages, and then repair and improve the shortcomings to achieve better results. Below are the results from the questionnaire we collected.

Judging from the results, it is even better than we expected. The vast majority of people are very satisfied with the audio comics we launched for dyslexia patients, and mentioned that this audio comic can indeed help them better learn synthetic biology knowledge. .The text in textbooks is no longer an obstacle to them getting a fair science education.

Not only that, but comparing our previous data on the public’s understanding of dyslexia with the current data, we can see that the same group of people have a broader understanding of dyslexia. Finally, everyone no longer knows everything about dyslexia, or they don’t know everything about it. There is a wrong misunderstanding of this disease, thinking that dyslexic patients are "smart lazy kids". Instead, we can view dyslexic patients correctly and understand the importance of giving them correct guidance and positive encouragement.



However, we have also noticed in the feedback that some people feel that there are still some areas for improvement in our team. For example, our publicity capabilities are not strong enough, so the number of affected people is still limited. Therefore, we were advised to expand the scope of publicity. We could produce promotional videos, hold dyslexia publicity lectures and seminars, etc. We are very happy to receive many good reviews and very valuable opinions, and are committed to working harder to absorb your valuable opinions and strive to help people with dyslexia to a greater extent next time and include them in science education. group, so that this group can receive equal and the same synthetic biology education.

Ultimately, following an intense five-month period of brainstorming, discussion, and collaboration, our team proudly unveiled a meaningful and inclusive project centered on individuals with dyslexia. Our extensive research illuminated a lack of attention and support for individuals with dyslexia, particularly in the STEM field. To address this, we conducted in-depth interviews with dyslexia patients and experts, yielding valuable insights for effective interventions. With unwavering commitment, our efforts strengthened our connection with the public and garnered enthusiastic responses from the community and online platforms. Our collective endeavors significantly improved society's understanding of dyslexia and dispelled common misconceptions. We utilized audio comics to ease learning challenges, especially in STEM. Our comprehensive campaign empowers individuals with dyslexia to pursue scientific knowledge freely. We hope to extend this project after the iGEM competition, establishing a dedicated club to support dyslexic individuals in overcoming perceived "learning disabilities", inclusively embracing them all into the embrace of STEM. Our overarching goal is to raise awareness and advocate for increased attention to this community, ensuring they are seen and supported in their pursuit of their dreams.