Developing and Evaluating Hikaya: A Bilingual Mobile App for Children with Dyslexia and Dyscalculia

Dyslexia and dyscalculia are lifelong learning disabilities that affect how individuals process language and numbers. Children with these disabilities often require specialized support, which can be difficult and expensive to provide. Smartphones and their applications (apps) have created opportunities for accessible digital learning support. However, most existing educational apps do not support Arabic language. Motivated by this, we introduce Hikaya, an interactive Android application designed to assist children with learning difficulties, particularly in Arabic-speaking countries. Hikaya provides bilingual support in Arabic and English covering three core subjects: Arabic, English, and Math. Parents can create accounts, add children, and monitor progress through a dedicated dashboard. Children can engage with one of three learning models, including a unique Reading Karaoke feature that allows them to read scripts aloud while the app evaluates their performance. To assess Hikaya’s perceived utility, user satisfaction, and system usability, a perception survey was completed by 200 participants after a one-month test period. The results displayed highly positive user reception and strong satisfaction. As future work, we aim to expand Hikaya’s language capabilities by supporting various Arabic dialects and widely spoken global languages. We also plan to integrate adaptive learning algorithms using Artificial Intelligence and collaborate with educators and speech therapists to enhance the app’s learning value.