AI Coding a Dyslexia Tutor

How one mom used a GPT to help her son learn his own way

- BY DENI ELLIS BÉCHARD

A DYSLEXIA DIAGNOSIS was supposed to offer solutions for a boy named Tobey. It was first identified in a routine school screening, which led to tutors, speech therapy, a neuropsychological evaluation and a spot at a Manhattan school that could better suit his needs. But Tobey continued to struggle. One winter afternoon in early 2025, at age 11, he came home discouraged, says his mother, Arlyn Gajilan. Why, he asked, did she keep telling him he was smart? “I’m slower than everybody else. Why is it so hard for me?’” she recalls him asking. “That was like a gut punch,” Gajilan says.

Gajilan, who has worked at Reuters for more than 14 years and was then digital news director, had been reading about artificial intelligence and custom generative pretrained transformers, or GPTs—tailored AI models that users can configure for specific tasks. After determining her data would be private, she fed one of the models Tobey’s report cards, neuropsychological evaluations and individualized education programs for his dyslexia. She also gave it his interests: dragons from the book series Wings of Fire, battles with Nerf guns, a song or two from Hamilton. She told the GPT he was bright and competitive but found reading and writing difficult, and she asked it to look for the best pedagogical approaches. “You are a special education teacher with expertise in teaching kids with dyslexia,” Gajilan recalls writing. “Your job is to help my son.” Then she handed Tobey her smartphone.

The decision wasn’t made lightly. Although Gajilan worked in technology, she didn’t let Tobey use social media, and he didn’t have his own smartphone. “I’m very conscious of the harm that technology can do,” she says.