Creating hope, defeating challenges for the learning disabled

posted by Ben Foss on November 10, 2009

I am so proud of the team that put the Intel® Reader together, and as someone who has difficulty reading standard print myself, I am very excited to see it entering the market. I filed the first patents on this technology a number of years ago and am thrilled to see the results of the hundreds of people who have worked so hard to make this Intel branded product possible.  As the director of access technology in the Digital Health Group at Intel, I would like to tell you my personal thoughts on this introduction.

It is important to remember that a central experience of a disability, and especially a learning disability, is loneliness.  It was a lonely feeling to have to leave class in third grade, and head to a special room to sound out words while the other kids had reading groups. And adults feel lonely as they worry that people might find out they do not have any books at home and that they cannot read the text off a power point slide in a meeting.

There are an estimated 55 million people with specific learning disabilities and vision impairments in the United States. This population will grow as we all age and the Baby Boomers reach their senior years.  The public policy impact of this is massive - the lost workers, the cost in daily time for parents and kids to help with reading and homework, the unnecessary increase to the dropout rate. The National Institutes of Health found in 2000 that a person with a learning disability like me was twice as likely to drop out of high school and 12 times less likely to get a four-year college degree. That is a huge loss for society and a frustrating personal experience for people living it.

I went to Stanford Law School and Business School and earned my JD/MBA.  Ironically, this can lead people to question how dyslexic I really am. I like to tell the story of a college friend who came to visit me once. He walked into my living room and said "Wow!  You really are dyslexic!  You don't have any books here.  No novels.  No cook books.  No travel books." And my response was "Nope. They are not useful to me. Why would I?"  He got it and no longer doubted who I was.

Since using the Intel Reader, I have bought five books online - five more than I even bought for pleasure in my life.  I have heard the same thing from low vision and blind folks. My favorite example is of Dorrie Rush, the access technology reviewer for the Lighthouse International--one of the many advocate groups that are supportive of this product.  She worked for years in the fashion industry.  Recently, she began loosing her vision to macular degeneration.  She used to enjoy reading Vogue and seeing the latest trends. With the Intel Reader, she says she gets that back - she even told me about a pair of Prada shoes she read about with a ruffled velvet fringe! These small things are really important- being able to talk with a friend about a book, or to read a invitation to a wedding; and more people will be able to get this in their lives now with the Intel Reader.

Intel has done a great thing for the world. Some people with disabilities can do great things, and some people cannot.  But we are trying to level the paying field so that people with disabilities can determine this for themselves.  With the Intel Reader, we are a step closer to that goal. 

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tagged: dyslexia, education, Intel Reader, learning disability