Her project idea, a playful and early approach to screen children with dyslexia while playing a game, received the special prize in the category “Ideas for Tomorrow”.  The main goal of the project is to contribute to early identification of reading/spelling problems with non-linguistic features. Besides being a tool that goes after avoiding suffering and frustration to children with such difficulties —even before they enter school—, the process of identifying such difficulties with the help of musical and visual elements in an app turns it into a playful tool for their young users to enjoy. 

For this research, Maria Rauschenberger has also received (already twice) the fem:talent Scholarship from the University of Applied Science Emden/Leer. The fem:talent Scholarship provides a financial support for a year and a pool to exchange ideas. The students who receive this award have to already succeed in their field of expertise or are expected to succeed in the future. With so much support, there is no doubt Maria will l be continuing developing her work, which will be hopefully very helpful for children with dyslexia in the future. 

We would like to congratulate Maria for this awards. Maria's advisors are Ricardo Baeza-Yates Professor at Universitat Pompeu Fabra & CTO of NTENT and Luz Rello Special Faculty en Cargenie Mellon University & Fundadora de Change Dyslexia. Also to be acknowledged for their support on this project are Dr. Jeffrey Bigham for his support on the study design and Dr. Emilia Gómez for her support on creating the musical input. Also, special thanks to Prof. Dr. Jörg Thomaschewski from the University of Applied Sciences Emden/Leer for his mentoring. 

Do you want to support Maria's research on Dyslexia? The research project is looking for children between 8 and 12 years old with dyslexia and without dyslexia. Only a computer or a tablet, headphones, and Internet are needed. Participants can be native speakers of English, Spanish or German. To receive your research invitation please write your details to: teilnehmerforschung@gmail.com