My dd, gr. 8, is going to be introduced to speech recog. software soon. They thought it might be helpful because she has trouble with her writing, in spite of having good ideas and verbal skills. The thing I’m worried about is her organization of ideas, which is also a problem. It’s a separate issue, I guess. How can we work on improving that part of her weakness, so she benefits from this? If all it does is put down in writing her good ideas, which are kind of all over the place, it’s not going to have much net effect, I’m afraid. Sorry if I posted this on the wrong message board. :?:
Re: Speech Recog Software?
Oops in my haste I thought it was *age* 8, *grade* 8 is very apppropriate for the software but many of my comments hold anyway. However, that is a perfectly ok age for this software. Though it is still frustrating to start with, and I still recommend a trained person to work with her.
Also the comments on writing still hold, but you should look into “Inspiration” at her age. Draftbuilder might actually be better but they are only tools, she should be taught these skills.
—des
Re: Speech Recog Software?
I have heard that Draft Builder is a good companion to speech recognition (and agree that eighth grade is a good age for starting it) for learning to organize writing. Inspiration is also good stuff, especially if you can find a teacher familiar with some of the neat teaching tools that have been put together for using it as an educational tool. Another option is “word prediction” software (e.g. Co:Writer or TextHelp!)— but it sounds like you’ve already made the decision.
http://www.resourceroom.net/older/speechrec.asp has an excellent article about the ins and outs of speech recognition from the trenches. Like an awful lot of things technological, it’s training and learning to use it — which takes time — that is the most important key to success with the stuff.
There is somebody (on the spk2wrt listserv which I believe is referenced in the above article) doing research on how instruction in the organization process of writing can be best done with speech recognition software — but I reckon the rest of us have to figure it out for ourselves.
Re: Speech Recog Software?
Sue, I will carefully read the article you recommended at a quieter moment. Our son is making another attempt at speech recogniton this summer. He is just finishing 11th grade and previous attempts have not been successful for a variety of reasons; computer too slow, frustration. I did contact a local community college to ask a few questions. They recommended a better (more sensitive) microphone than the one that came with Dragon 6.0. They also recommended two months of just playing with the program before being under the pressure of producing an assignment with a due date. So, summer will be a good time to try once again to make this work. Our son composes very well, with lots of practice on his tape recorder. Also, our last attempt at speech recognition was helped by a class of water with a straw for those dry mouth episodes. I hope I’ll have good news to report later in the summer.
Re: Speech Recog Software?
An excellent microphone is an absolute must. Don’t settle for the junk they are usually boxed with, mostly not too sensitive and the noise cancellation is not so hot either.
You can improve accuracy greatly just by changing mikes.
—des
Re: Speech Recog Software?
Thanks for all of the program suggestions and notes of caution! I will look into the things you mentioned, like CoWriter, KidSpiration, and DraftBuilder. I’ll also pay attention to the mic!
A doctoral student will be helping her try it out, so she will be supervised. The student herself used it when her arm was injured one semester, so that might be a help. I’m going to suggest that we look into working with some of the outlines as well.
There really hasn’t been any decision made to use this at this point, it is just something that is available for us to try, so we figured no harm there.
As for a technology eval, I would like to hear more about that, as this is all something new to me, and I don’t know how we get one done, or even where to do it! What is involved with that? Now I’m curious.
Thanks.
Re: Speech Recog Software?
Penny,
I would agree that it is important to consider graphic organizing software such as Inspiration or Draft:Builder which help students organize their written expression. I have trained students on both programs and there are benefits to both.
What is more important to do is to pursue an assistive technology (AT) assessment through your daughter’s school. Has AT been considered at your daughter’s IEP meetings? AT MUST be considered for EVERY student according to IDEA-97 as one of the five special considerations.
There may be better solutions to the issues that your daughter faces that would be assessed during an AT evaluation. It is hard to make specific recommendations as it depends upon your daughter’s strengths, areas of concern, current academic performance and IEP goal’s and objectives.
If you do believe that voice recognition is the way to go,
make sure your computer has at least 512 MB RAM if it is running XP, to ensure success. Also, Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred is at version 7.3 so buy that version. The Preferred version runs about $150-$200, don’t skimp and buy the Essentials or an older program.
Voice recognition software can be very effective for students but keep these points in mind -
1. It helps if the student is motivated to try out the software.
2. High frustration level is a must - it can be frustrating for some students due to problems with accuracy.
3. Ability to persist and make corrections to increase accuracy is also important.
4. There are different cognitive demands when using voice recognition software. You’ve identified the most important one which is the ability to generate text in a format which is very different from what most students are used to. Different skills are required.
Hope this helps!
You didn’t post this in the wrong forum. This is actually a great question, and one of the perceived weaknesses of speech recognition. Some people do eventually learn to compose on the fly but most people do need to learn HOW to write before they actually do it anyway. Particularly kids with learning disabilities.
Your child is pretty young, imo, for speech recog. It is VERY frustrating to learn as you have to teach the program how to recognize your speech which is done by reading passages to it. The passages are maybe at a 6-8th grade level and can’t be controlled for ease of reading due to the demands of the software. If he were to learn this, he must have a trained person working with him and he should not use the software without supervision. (uncorrected mistakes effect the accuracy). The other problem with his age is that the software is created for adult voices. Some younger kids have used them “successfully”. (I say in quotes as their success is not as great as an adult’s but they do use it.)
Perhaps someone like that will answer.
I really wouldn’t recommend speech to text at his age. I’d be looking more at CoWriter (or other word prediction software) and perhaps a talking word processor like Write Outloud. He should also have work in composing approp to his age. KidSpiration (which you can download to try out— search for Inspiration) helps you create a visual outline (pictures and so on). It and Inspiration are good for visually oriented folks. Draftbuilder helps with a draft as well— not sure the age range. Check out www.donjohnston.com
Has he had a technology evaluation? He should really have one fo these before starting out. You can ask the schools, I think KTJ (?) has more info on this and will no doubt answer this.
HTH,
—des