Assistive Learning Environment Markup Language (ALEML) for the Learning Disabled

Learning disabilities (LD) are usually referred as hidden disabilities as they are difficult to identify. The kinds and severity of problems vary from learner to learner. Each LD learner has their own unique set of strengths, weaknesses, interests, experiences and special abilities and all these needs must be addressed. These difficulties can be alleviated by providing appropriate learning environment for them. This paper is based on our previous research work [1] in which we had proposed a framework, an Assistive Learning Environment (ALE) to enhance the learning experience of LD students in their academic life. It was capable for recognizing what content has to delivered, variability associated with each LD learner and transformations associated with the content to deliver it to the LD learner. A content repository is developed where the entire course content is stored with a rich set of annotations. It must be rich enough to capture all the requirements of the LD learner at alphabet level, word level, sentence level and paragraph level. So we have created ALEML - an XML based mark up language for this purpose that represents our content repository.