500 Journal of Basic & Applied Sciences, 2017, 13, 500-507 ISSN: 1814-8085 / E-ISSN: 1927-5129/17 © 2017 Lifescience Global Augmented Reality Based Spelling Assistance to Dysgraphia Students Muhammad Faizan Khan 1,* , Muhammad Azhar Hussain 1 , Kamran Ahsan 1 , Muhammad Saeed 2 , Adnan Nadeem 1,3 , Syed Asim Ali 2 , Nadeem Mahmood 2 and Kashif Rizwan 1 1 Computer Science Department, Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science & Technology, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Karachi, Pakistan 2 Department of Computer Science, University of Karachi, Main University Road, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan 3 Faculty of Computer Science and Information System, Islamic University of Madinah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Abstract: Dysgraphia, a learning disability associated with writing skills, hinders students to put their thought on paper and write correctly. Writing problems hit students most frequently that one third students become failed to acquire writing skill. Different IT based assistance solutions available for dysgraphia students but most of them are accommodations based or provides writing alternatives rather than developing writing skills of a dysgraphia student. Handwriting is an essential skill for academic life and developed handwriting skill helps student to protect their self- esteem and build student’s confidence to participate in other activities during class. Most of available writing assistance solutions do not provide interesting ways to acquire writing skills. To handle this problem, augmented reality (AR) based dysgraphia assistance solution has presented in this work. This study utilized AR to develop dysgraphia student’s interest in writing and used it to assist in writing activity by providing help in spellings. AR based dysgraphia assistance writing environment (AR-DAWE) modal use Google cloud API of speech-to-text and addressed one of the important issues of dysgraphia student that is associated with spelling mistakes. Keywords: Dysgraphia, Learning Disability, Assistance, Writing Skill, Assistive Technology, Handwriting. 1. INTRODUCTION Dysgraphia is a learning disability which affects writing skills, that requires complex set of motor and information processing skills [1]. It is a component within the wide-ranging definition of written expression disorders; refers to illegible handwriting and spelling errors [2]. According to a report, about 13% of students (age 3-21) in all public schools receiving special education. Among 35% of these have learning disability issues [3]. Handwriting is the basic academic but complex skill that acquired over extended period of time and it combines motor and linguistic components [2]. It usually produces problem in spellings and poor handwriting [4]. Student face immense difficulty to put their thoughts on paper hence, produces low quality of script [5]. They often make letter formation inconsistencies; make capital/small letter mistake and letter space inconsistency. Associated problems of the disability are sign orientations through symptoms (addition, deletion, omission, transposition of punctuation sign and symbol, transliteration/ transcription of one alphabet to another) [1]. Due to these reasons, children affected with dysgraphia avoid *Address correspondence to this author at the Computer Science Department, Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science & Technology MSc. Block, Gulshan-e- Iqbal, Karachi, Pakistan; Tel: +92-308-2735377; E-mail: mfkj@live.com writing task, being considering it a cumbersome activity and become frustrated early. Handwriting problems are in general due to motor nature, they are not related to poor spellings or any kind of psycholinguistic issues [5]. Another worth noting fact is that one third students fail to get efficient writing skills. Handwriting is the basic academic but complex skill that acquired over extended period and it combines motor and linguistic components [2]. For learning disable students, it is necessary to discover innovative solution that not only help them but also motivate them in learning process [6]. Augmented reality integrates virtual object or virtual view in real object or real environment. It is similar to virtual reality (VR) concept but it did not immerse user completely instead user can view virtual object in augmentation with real object. AR adds a virtual layer that can include 3D-objects, animation, texture/images, sound into real world view [7]. In simple manner, it is a technique that augments virtual view into the real world and doesn’t break the user connection/interaction with real world unlike VR. Augmented reality (AR) constitutes with three main characteristics which include (i) combination of real and virtual world, (ii) real time user interaction ability and (iii) it being happen/register in 3d space [8]. Augmented reality is one of the widely research area and its implementation