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Hi my name is Ben Cooper and I live in Austin, TX.
You may not know this about me, but I am dyslexic.
And this is my dad Andrew and my mom Robbi.
Bookshare has been an incredible
component for us to figure how to get our son to
actively read and absorb information.
I think it's been a great success story for our family.
We wanted to share with everybody how
dyslexia affects our family and our son
and the wonderful progress we've made with Bookshare.
So, I hope you enjoy our story!
Before you really go and do anything I think it's important to understand
what the diagnosis is.
I think for us, once we found out where Ben's challenges were,
it was easy for us to take the necessary steps to move forward.
Some of the testing results we got,
quite frankly,
I disputed the results.
I didn't want to believe some of the information.
A lot of wonderful resources I found
on the Internet. Where they were and talking to various people we found Bookshare.
So, Barbara Nichols, our school librarian, she
immediately saw the value.
I brought the Bookshare resource in and she just really embraced it whole-heartedly.
And the biggest issue Ben struggled with was reading.
He had some difficulty with decoding and deciphering words
and fluency in that kinda thing and that also translated back into
his writing. But having a conversation with Ben
it was pretty quick for you to realize that he was a pretty sharp
young man and so we just needed to figure out a way to get all that good
information that we knew we had in all the information we knew he'd be able to
attain if he could just access that text.
She has helped me throughout the whole time.
She's given me technology that helped in class.
She was the first person to
give me a computer that helped me in school.
And to this last year, I was still
using the computer that the school provided.
So I downloaded an app called Read2 Go that was developed by Benetech.
It reads Bookshare books to you.
And it feels like I have more power
in just this hand.
I don't have to go far to get something to read.
This technology which is readily available
it's such a fantastic solution i think is just starting to catch on
People are just now learning that this technology is available
and hopefully the educational system will equally embrace
the technology to allow access for students
which will ultimately at the end of the day work for what we are trying to do
to educate children.
NCLD is a wonderful resource for parents
of children who have learning disabilities and dyslexia is one of the primary
learning disabilities. They work tirelessly behind the scenes in
Washington DC
advocating for the rights of
individuals with learning disabilities
I never looked back because once you open the door to advocacy there is
so much to be done
there's not enough people that are doing it
I have time so I feel
Bookshare is really worth every ounce of my time to advocate for and promote.
And so in my world if I could change that one thing.
That's what drives me the most.
I would love to see a day when children read digital books
with audio support and
that be amazing!
And validated on an national level that
these children are reading! www.bookshare.org