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Main Authors: Jhilal, Soufiane, Galletti, Martina
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.24536
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author Jhilal, Soufiane
Galletti, Martina
author_facet Jhilal, Soufiane
Galletti, Martina
contents Reading comprehension presents a significant challenge for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), often requiring intensive one-on-one reading support. To assist therapists in scaling this support, we developed a multilingual, AI-powered interface that automatically enhances text with visual scaffolding. This system dynamically identifies key concepts and maps them to contextually relevant pictograms, supporting learners across languages. We evaluated the system across five typologically diverse languages (English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Arabic), through multilingual coverage analysis, expert clinical review by speech therapists and special education professionals, and latency assessment. Evaluation results indicate high pictogram coverage and visual scaffolding density across the five languages. Expert audits suggested that automatically selected pictograms were semantically appropriate, with combined correct and acceptable ratings exceeding 95% for the four European languages and approximately 90% for Arabic despite reduced pictogram repository coverage. System latency remained within interactive thresholds suitable for real-time educational use. These findings support the technical viability, semantic safety, and acceptability of automated multimodal scaffolding to improve accessibility for neurodiverse learners.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_24536
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Robust Multilingual Text-to-Pictogram Mapping for Scalable Reading Rehabilitation
Jhilal, Soufiane
Galletti, Martina
Computation and Language
Human-Computer Interaction
Reading comprehension presents a significant challenge for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), often requiring intensive one-on-one reading support. To assist therapists in scaling this support, we developed a multilingual, AI-powered interface that automatically enhances text with visual scaffolding. This system dynamically identifies key concepts and maps them to contextually relevant pictograms, supporting learners across languages. We evaluated the system across five typologically diverse languages (English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Arabic), through multilingual coverage analysis, expert clinical review by speech therapists and special education professionals, and latency assessment. Evaluation results indicate high pictogram coverage and visual scaffolding density across the five languages. Expert audits suggested that automatically selected pictograms were semantically appropriate, with combined correct and acceptable ratings exceeding 95% for the four European languages and approximately 90% for Arabic despite reduced pictogram repository coverage. System latency remained within interactive thresholds suitable for real-time educational use. These findings support the technical viability, semantic safety, and acceptability of automated multimodal scaffolding to improve accessibility for neurodiverse learners.
title Robust Multilingual Text-to-Pictogram Mapping for Scalable Reading Rehabilitation
topic Computation and Language
Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.24536