Ghotit Spell Checker for People with Dyslexia

Author: Ghotit - Contact: ghotit.com
Published: 2009/02/22 - Updated: 2017/02/07
Topic: Electronics and Software - Publications List

Page Content: Synopsis - Introduction - Main

Synopsis: Ghotit releases innovative context-based spell checker enabling people with poor spelling to write correctly.

Introduction

According to the National Institutes of Health, approximately 5-15 percent of the population suffers from severe reading and writing difficulties associated with dyslexia.

Focus

Dyslexia is the most prevalent of all known learning disabilities. Dyslexics spend significant time, effort and money to improve their written communication skills.

Ofer Chermesh is a life long dyslexic and one of Ghotit's founders. The struggle of producing readable text is well known to him. "I have no doubt that the people who designed regular spell checkers did not have in mind people with dyslexia. Regular spell checkers are targeting people with good spelling that occasionally make spelling mistakes, not dyslexics like myself" says Ofer Chermesh.

Regular spell checkers are designed to correct spelling mistakes that are relatively close to the correct spelling.

In order to identify the correct spelling of a poorly spelled word, the context of the sentence needs to be analyzed. Ghotit offers novel patent-pending context spell checking technology tuned for people with dyslexia and bad spelling. Using these algorithms Ghotit can pick up and correct not only really bad spelled words but also misused words, words that are spelled correctly, but are written out of context.

As a solution designed by people with dyslexia, Ghotit has integrated into its spell checker unique features aimed to radically change the writing experience of dyslexics. Ghotit has integrated a dictionary service so that all suggested words are presented with their meanings. In addition, Ghotit has integrated a text-to-speech service so that the user can make sure that what he wrote is exactly what he intended to communicate.

Ghotit launched its online free service on February 2008 and spent the past year optimizing Ghotit context-sensitive algorithms.

It has a demonstrated around 95% successful correction of poorly spelled text. In February, 2009 Ghotit released its Microsoft Plug-in for Microsoft Word for Windows. Once the Ghotit Plug-in is downloaded, it is installed as an extension to Microsoft Word, providing an integrated user writing experience.

"Ghotit spell-checker was designed for people like me, people who have completely lost their confidence to write. With Ghotit, I now write confidently, continuing to misspell as I always have, but with the confidence that Ghotit is there with me to review my writing and offer the right corrections" says Ofer Chermesh.

Though initially designed for people with dyslexia, Ghotit has demonstrated success for people with other writing and reading difficulties such as people that use English as their Second Language (ESL) and English Language Learners (ELL) enabling them to move to main stream English Writing - www.ghotit.com