Due to my dyslexia and dyspraxia, I find handwriting impossible. This made essay writing at school incredibly frustrating as I wasn’t able to get all my ideas down and subsequently scored terrible marks.
I tried learning to touch type but this was a long and gruelling process and I could only type short paragraphs before the effort became too much. I needed an unusual solution.
My parents did some investigating and found out about speech recognition software. Thank goodness they did as without it I would not have passed my GCSEs let alone be studying philosophy at University. It was the solution I was looking for but it was certainly not easy and I will talk about the difficulties I faced as a nine-year-old dyslexic learning to use speech recognition software.
In this blog I want to clear up a couple of myths about speech recognition. It seems whenever I mention that speech recognition is my main method of work, there is always some clever clogs who says, “It’s rubbish” or, “I tried that and it didn’t work properly”. The reason most people have formulated this opinion is because many who have tried out the software did so back in the 90s. This was when the software was brand-new, shockingly underdeveloped and really should not have been released to the public.
Unfortunately, this concept of the 90s Ghost of Speech Recognition Past is still hanging around, much like 90s boy bands! I hope to dispel a couple of myths and misconceptions surrounding speech recognition and shed light on a few things you might not know about it.
Speech recognition software was a complete lifesaver, enabling me to write essays, take exams and achieve to my full academic potential. Many dyslexic and dyspraxic students, both at school and university can benefit from this software as a way around severe handwriting difficulties. However, many of the students who are given the software never take out of the box and find it too difficult to get to grips with. In the next blog I will try to explain why this happens and how it could be prevented.
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Kakisu commented on 13 May 2010 at 11:06 pm
Looking forward to hearing about your experiences. Thanks for addressing this issue and shining light on this.
Nick commented on 1 June 2010 at 1:44 pm
As a dyslexic student at university in 2002-5, I too used Speech Recognition software, inputting directly to Word. I found it so useful, I created a voice-driven website in my final year.
I used both L&H VoiceXpress and IBM ViaVoice. I did not relate well to Dragon Dictate. For an accessibility tool I did not find Dragon accessible! But it is certainly the one most successfully marketed, and most prevelent today.
Is that the one you are using? I would be very interested to hear your experiences, because I cannot get VoiceXpress to work on Win7.
Regards, Nick
Rhodri commented on 1 June 2010 at 8:21 pm
Hi Nick
I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 10. We did quite a lot of research and thought it would be the best one. I have never actually used any other speech recognition software. I find Dragon10 very accurate, it learns new words very quickly as well. It will be interesting to know how different other speech recognition programmes are to Dragon and why you found Dragon problematic. If you would like to know anything specific about my experience with Dragon then feel free to e-mail me. info at rhodders.com
Kakisu, No problem glad you found my blog helpful.
eleanor commented on 2 June 2010 at 10:32 am
Hi
I was told that the new Windows 7 voice recognition is just as good. I am looking for a computer where there are many users and therefore Dragon Naturally Speaking would be a bit limited since it needs to be customised to an individual user.
what do you think?
resume online commented on 7 June 2010 at 4:27 pm
Excellent post! I completely agree.
LENA commented on 7 June 2010 at 5:16 pm
I often read your blog and always find it very interesting. Thought it was about time i let you know…Keep up the great work
Rhodri commented on 22 June 2010 at 10:49 am
Hi Eleanor
I do not have any actual experience with Windows 7. However I know for a fact that both Dragon and Windows 7 both have to be individually trained by each user. I don’t know about Windows 7 but the training process with the latest Dragon does not take very long and accuracy improves the more the software is used and the more it is strained. Hope that helps
And thanks LENA I’m glad you from my blogs interesting.
Arthur Zueger commented on 10 February 2011 at 6:08 pm
I do want to mention I am a senior 78 +years old my spelling is limited . I started out with number five Dragon and at the present time I’m on number nine if it would not be for Dragon I will be unable to send e-mails or sell some my antique auto parts. I am using XP and going to upgrade to Windows seven I am very pleased with this voice recognition software thanks again
aisha commented on 11 April 2011 at 6:42 pm
Iam also a dyslexia person and it always was a challange sort of thing to write things up during class sessions.My parents tried a lot to help me out but could nt actually do so therefore at the end all what helped me out was speech recognition.Through out my career,i just excelled due to this great software.Hats off to it!!!