Bacabot helps dyslexic children to read, count more easily

SINTOK: A research team from Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) has successfully devised the Bacabot application to help and create an interest in children with dyslexia to learn more easily.

The team, led by Prof Dr Zulikha Jamaludin, from the School of Computing (SoC), said Bacabot is an application to help children with dyslexia to read accurately and enhance their ability to count.

"We use robots to attract the interest of these special students to learn in an easier way. They can choose to use the robot, laptop or tablet," she said in a statement.

The team also included Dr Husniza Husni, Dr Mustafa Muwafak Theab Alobaedy and Dr Azizi Ab Aziz also from the SoC.

Zulikha said through the application, dyslexic children can learn Malay, English, and mathematics in a way that can be adapted to the level and needs of their ability.

"This application is unique in that it is very flexible because its database can be accessed and adapted by teachers and parents by way of updating data and adding new data, sentences, and phrases. It also has features which will help students to read, listen, and even record their answers,” she said.

Zulikha said the use of the Bacabot application when carried out on school children, showed encouraging results. This enabled them to win a gold medal at the Research Invention and Innovation Competition for Private Institutions of Higher Learning, Malaysia 2016 (PERINTIS 2016), recently.

"More encouraging was that the Bacabot also received a Special Award from the Malaysian Invention and Design Society (MINDS), the award recipients were selected from among the gold medallists," she said. - Bernama