From Our Founder

Thank you for visiting the Cognition Labs website.
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By definition reading has a visual component. The visual component, determined long ago by the printing press, continues to determine how we read. If a reader can manage the particular formulation of sound/symbol relationships, embedded in a complex visual field, progressing from left to right and top to bottom, reading transpires. However, 10 to 20% of readers struggle with those relationships.

Historically, students who struggled with learning to read were considered “lazy” or “needing to try harder.” Over time, as we learned more about the brain and the nature of reading, we re-named those struggling readers as “dyslexic” and defined that struggle in the psychiatric book of mental disorders—the DSM-V—as a “Reading Disorder.” Now, those readers are labeled as neuroatypical, neurodivergent, neurodiverse. Whatever we call it, the “problem” continues to be a “problem of the reader.” For the millions of people who struggle to read, there is often a life-long and generational impact. Communication and connection with one’s community and the world are largely based on the ability to read and comprehend. When this ability is impaired, there often follows a destructive and emotional wake which can be measured in the isolation, financial aid given, school drop-out rates, prison rates, and poor health outcomes.

For more than 40 years, I have been helping “those students” learn to read. About 10 years ago, as I sat at my computer re-typing the pages of a book to suit the needs of a young struggling reader, as I had done so many times before, I realized that a computer could be programmed to change the look of text to meet each reader’s unique visual perceptual needs. I saw that the difficulties with the visual component of reading could be lifted and instead of the “problem” residing in the student, it could reside in the text which could be individualized and diversely applied. It was in that moment that CogniLens was conceived.

After years of work with struggling readers, I knew that some students read better from right to left, some are aided by increases in the size and spacing of letters and words, or are helped when the confusing letters, such as b and d are made easily recognizable. There were many changes which combined in ways particular to the reader, made reading less stressful and more fluent.

CogniLens provides the easy opportunity to change the look of text to suit the individual’s unique visual perceptual needs. Whether you are “dyslexic,” a second language learner trying to read English, or just feel better when text is bigger or looks different, this app can help. For teachers, Learning Specialists and Educational Therapists working with struggling readers, CogniLens provides an additional layer of support to research-based teaching practices.

Questions or feedback? Feel free to share your thoughts. Contact us.