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LEAP Adult Basic Education - Durham County Council

Student Profile.

This student came to us for help in accessing training when the slump in farming resulted in his unemployment.

He was diagnose d as having Specific Learning Difficulties (Dyslexia) when he was nine and educated in the remedial class, where he was a regular attendee. Upon re-testing as an adult his literary skill came in the well below average category. In contrast his intellectual capacity (I.Q.) came in the superior category.

In view of this student ability to achieve his full potential because of the limitations imposed by his disability, we decide to supplement our study skills and multi-sensory language programmes with the loan of NIACE Computers.

In six months this student has raised his sights from wondering if he was capable of completing a basic IT course, to signing on for an Open University degree.

The following is an account of how he has benefited from using the NIACE laptop.

In having the use of this computer I have been able to learn to use the word-processing programme. This has helped me with my spelling and punctuation as it shows up the mistakes that I have made so I can think about fixing them. It also means that I can go back through my work and correct it easily with the help of the spell checker and the text help Read and Write software, which has its own spell checker. If that fails, there is always the Oxford English Dictionary loaded, which I open to one side of the screen.

The text Help, read and Write software has made it possible for me to do my OU course and VIE (Volunteering Into Employment) course, as I am now able to do reports. This would have been impossible without my learning to use a computer effectively. This computer has also given me access to the Internet and the Encarta Dictionary, which is invaluable in getting information for both of my courses.

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