The Apple iPad is the most popular of all tablets - 338 million have been sold since 2010. With more than 10% of the UK population having some form of dyslexia, chances are many dyslexics own an iPad. The new software on Apple iPads, iPhones and Macs is packed with handy tools to help dyslexics with everyday tasks such as typing, reading and researching.
Here are some quick iPad, iPhone & Mac tips for those with Dyslexia…
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Turn on Dictation
This feature is available on most iPads, iPhones and Macs. You can press the dictation button, speak into your device and it will accurately type it out for you. This is ideal if you have trouble with certain words or are in a hurry to write an email!
- To turn dictation on on your iPad or iPhone go to the settings icon and click on General > Siri and switch Siri to be on. When you’re typing something you’ll now have the small microphone button to the left of your space bar, you can press this, speak and it will type it for you
- To turn dictation on on a Mac, go to the apple logo at the top left of your screen and click on System Preferences > Accessibility > Dictation and tick ‘Play sound when command is recognised’. When you want to speak into your computer click on the ‘Function (fn)’ button twice and start talking.
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Text to Speech Function
A brilliant tool to turn on so you can tell your device to read text aloud to you… Again, this is available on iPads, iPhones and Mac Computers.
- To turn this on on a iPhone and iPad go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Speech. Under this section there are options including speak selection (reads out text when you select text), speak screen (reads out text on the whole screen) and Speak Auto-Text (automatically speaks auto-corrections)
- To use this on a Mac, highlight a section of text you want to be read aloud. Right click on this selected text and click on ‘Speech’ and then ‘Start Speaking’
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Siri
Siri, the Apple in-built personal assistant, can do a lot to help dyslexics. You can ask Siri to spell out a word, research something on Google, open apps and much more.
Have you tried any of these functions on your Apple devices? Let us know if/how they’ve helped you…
If you aren’t sure if you have dyslexia, our online test is available on iPad. Find out more…