Literate - Commercialization of dyslexia screening tests.

Dyslexia is the worlds most widespread learning disorder. We know how to intervene, what procedures work and how we can support dyslexia. Still, millions of children have an unidentified dyslexia. This is mainly due to the lack of tools for identifying dyslexia early. In Norway, affected individuals are typically identified late, when interventions are less likely to be effective. Literate has an exclusive license agreement with UiT The Arctic University of Norway (UiT) to commercialize an efficient online dyslexia screening test. The test is research-based, and was developed at UiTy for the purpose of The Tromsø Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia. Later, the test portfolio was further developed in a parallel normative study. The tests have the potential to be a useful and valid tool for identifying individuals at risk for dyslexia, from pre-school age through adulthood. The principal investigator of these studies is Professor Nergård Nilssen. She is also the founder of Literate. The business model is highly scalable and has been tested in Norway, where Literate has launched a dyslexia screening test for adolescents and adults. The screening test for children was launched in April 2020. A key feature is that the screening tools is easy to administer, it does not require any formal background from the test administrators, it takes only 30 minutes to complete, with immediate results in an easy-to-understand format. The test has high reliability and validity and offer high security with eID integration and does not requires any plugins in the browser. In short, Literate enables time-efficient screening for dyslexia. Literate has ambitions to launch its tests in Europe and received the Horizon 2020 Seal of Excellence for its plans. The commercialization project will prepare the innovation for large scale expansion, clarify areas of the innovation and develop and demonstrate key technology concept and the business model needed to scale-up.

Up to 12 percent of the population is affected by developmental dyslexia. Special needs education costs nearly £43,000 per individual. Children at risk for dyslexia are referred to assessment very late, when they lag far behind their peers and interventions are less effective. The impact of Literate will be early identification, which allow interventions to be implemented before a downward spiral of underachievement, lowered self-esteem and poor motivation sets in. Outcomes of this project: - Screening batteries with Norwegian norms for 1st grade - Beta-version of screening test for children with speech recognition for large scale screening. - Full digital business model. - A screening and diagnostic test for youth. - Validation of the children test and demonstration of diagnostic capabilities.