Anyone out there have any experiences with voice recognition software, specifically the Dragon Speak 7.0? I was wondering how easy it would be for a child to use and for what age would it be appropriate? The one child I have in mind (age 10, grade 5) is very verbal but has issues with upper body strength and handwriting. His keyboarding is coming along, but is slow yet he is very verbal. An OT recommended strength training and a slant board but did not comment on technology for I guess a lack of information on the subject. The second child is 9 years in grade 3 and is also very verbal but her writing slows down for her lack of spelling and she looses her thoughts, writes less, etc. Any comments would be helpful. Thanks! KD
Re: Dragon Speak Naturally 7.0
Des is right — it isn’t easy, period — but that is the profile of student that it works well for. I found the training somewhat taxing — and I’m as verbal as they come :-) However, I also type fast…
There is an outdated website about speech rec (funding dried up) for secondary studetns and a current email list about it which is about to go on hiatus for a couple of weeks but the archives are online, I believe, and a few sites with good training scripts for kids were linked to; the site is at http://www.edc.org/spk2wrt/ and you can get to the email list archives from there; they’re definitely worth perusing. Another invaluable resource for AT is the archives of the list at http://www.qiat.org and speech rec has come up many times there.
There are technical issues — it’s software after all — and yes, the stuff was designed for that mature midwestern male voice. However, if you really get your ducks in a row, it could be worth your best shot.
My comments wouldnt’ be Dragon specific but to voice recogniton per se. They would not be *easy* for anybody, uncluding yourself. And I would suggest that you get the program and try and train yourself first before doing this with a kid. Also make sure that the reading level is about 4th grade or higher. I don’t think these can be used lower than that unless you are with them constantly. (I’ve heard people say that kids should not use without supervision— they will get sloppy and allow the program to make mistakes instead of correcting). Anyway these programs involve a period of “training” in which you teach the program to recognize your speech patterns and the way you say words. Then you will spend time correcting your speech profile while you use it. Some of the newer ones are very much more accurate.
The other factor is the speech engine is specifically designed for adult voices, once they did a Via Voice for teenagers and I think it was the most returned product in this one superstore I used to go to. The voice of a child is higher pitched and may not have some of the problems of a teen voice but still will be higher pitched and different than a womans.
As I said, use it yourself first. If your kid becomes very frustrated you can stop. However, I have heard of young kids with quite poor accuracy that really love it. They put up with an 80% or even lower accuracy (80% equals one of ten words wrong) because they are happy to write for themselves.
Another possibility is word prediction. This is where the computer program the correct word from a series of possible choices based on grammar and the first or more letters that you type. It cuts down on the manual strength and fatigue of typing. I used to use one (CoWriter). It is slow but always accurate. You also need a 4th grade reading level to use well. Don Johnston makes CoWriter (www.donjohnston.com) but there are other companies as well. You might look on their webpage as it does explain this better than I can.
—des