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When Grace Clausen was diagnosed with dyslexia 10 years ago, there weren’t many resources available to her.
A few years later, her sister received the same diagnosis. Clausen watched as people assumed her sister wasn’t smart, but Clausen knew she just didn’t have the accommodations she needed to succeed.
Working with her peers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Raikes School of Computer Science and Management, Clausen applied what she learned in a machine-learning class to create an artificial intelligence-based tool for people with dyslexia.
The tool, called Dyslexico, allows users to paste their text into the system, which then reviews it for spelling and grammar mistakes. It highlights any errors and provides explanations for its suggestions.
It also uses feedback and error classification to place a user's common mistakes into five different categories: incomplete thought, incorrect letter capitalization, phonological, orthographic and morphologic syntactic.
The categories are based on the Orton-Gillingham approach, and the Dyslexico team plans to further refine the categories in the future and identify more precise errors.
“You can also see like the lifetime report to kind of see which areas they tend to make a higher frequency compared to others,” said Dyslexico co-founder Tristan Curd. “Our hope with this information is that educators can look at this for their students and actually make more targeted learning plans for their students as a result of this.”
Right now, Dyslexico is in an open beta phase and is free. The team is working with educators and users to gather feedback to see what can be improved. Eventually, the team will switch to a subscription-based model.
Dyslexico is in a handful of schools across the country, according to Clausen and Curd. So far, Clausen said the feedback has been encouraging.
“Teachers are really, really enthusiastic to see where this will go and really use it as a companion in the classroom for providing more specialized care,” she said. “And students are just like, absolutely in love with it, because we're catching more errors than traditional tools.”
According to Clausen and Curd, Dyslexico’s biggest difference from other spelling and grammar tools is that they trained the AI software with real writing from people with dyslexia.
Curd said the software learns quickly and can catch mistakes that even the team wouldn’t notice.
The team started working on the software in December 2022. They have since participated in pitch competitions to win funding and have utilized university resources to connect with other Nebraska startups.
They also met with State Senator Lou Ann Linehan, who has passed dyslexia legislation in the past, to share about their software.
In the 2024 legislative session, Linehan introduced a bill to create a dyslexia research grant program, which was then merged into LB1284. Clausen and Curd said they plan to apply for the grant funding as soon as the program starts.
Hearing feedback from students with dyslexia who are excited to have a tool that works for them was especially meaningful for Clausen, who said she’s learning she’s not alone in her struggles.
“Especially when I was diagnosed was a really lonely thing, because nobody talked about it,” she said. “There’s a lot of really successful people with dyslexia. And I think we’re just starting to see a new wave of visibility around it.”
Clausen and Curd graduated from UNL in May, along with the third and final member of the current team. That's Bridget Peterkin, who also graduated from UNL this spring.
The software has had over 4,000 unique users in the past 90 days, and the team is hoping to one day turn their startup into a fully-fledged company.