Hit: Voice Recognition Software

[Sherry Paul <NKSMA@AOL.COM>]

                Thanks to all who sent information about voice recognition software
for special needs students (and others).  I've summarized the information I
received below.  Bottom line still seems to be that these programs need to
be "trained"--an exacting process-- and most (if not all) are designed to
work with just one person's voice. Their functionality in a multiuser
environment with one computer (or even several) is somewhat limited. These
programs have improved over the last few years and will no doubt continue to
do so; perhaps this issue will be addressed.            Sherry

Responses:
        "...my husband purchased VIA VOICE at Best Buy for about $50.00.  It
has a built in word processor, Notepad, which is a function of Word.  The
Notepad does not have the editing capabilities of Word, but it is easily
saved in Word and editing can be done there. The software has to be
"trained" for an hour or more.  The "training" consists of having the user
read prepared texts into the software.  The longer the training, the better
the software gets.  My husband is using this in an extensive research
project.  Although he has found it to be useful, it could prove frustrating
for a student, particularly one with limitations.  The text generally
requires considerable editing.  For instance, when he used the name 'Kitty
Beard,' it came out 'keg of beer!'"
        "I talked with our special ed. teacher about this.  They have looked
into it, but have found the cost is extremely high and the product could
only be voiced trained for a single user."
        "I am familiar with Dragon Naturally Speaking which has been rated
by many technology magazine to be the best. My husband uses it quite often.
In order to use this program, and other ones as well I would imagine, one
must 'train' the program to recognize your particular speech patterns. One
must speak several lengthy paragraphs into the microphone so that the
program learns the users speech.  As someone who used to teach hearing
impaired kids, I would be concerned with those of your students that have
articulation problems. If there is any way that you can test this software
before you use it, I would. Perhaps you can contact other people who have
used this with special ed. students and see if it is suitable. Good luck."
        "This is something we discussed in one of my library science courses
and one of my classmates does use this because she has severe carpal tunnel.
There is a great web site that discusses several products:
http://voicerecognition.com/1999/products/   The common one is the Dragon
product.  However, she changed from that to the Lernout & Hauspie product
because she felt it was more sophisticated."
        "Good articles and info about them at ldonline.org, specifically
http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/technology/technology.html
For the stuff to work, you have to "train" the software to your voice, which
takes time and requires reading -- precisely what lots of the sped kids have
trouble with.  Part of that technology section includes a step-by-step
tutorial for that training.  There seems to be a nearly universal
recommendation that the "discrete speech" software be used, as it requires
less training and is more accurate -- and apparently, speaking with pauses
is  just not as big a deal for the sped kids as it might be for others.
http://www.edc.org/spk2wrt/ is a website about speech-recognition software &
its uses in secondary settings and has a discussion.  (My background is in
learning disabilities -- I gathered the info for the LD OnLine technology
section.)"
        "My husband uses a speech recognition software that is very good.
However, it requires a considerable amount of time and patience to "train"
the software to recognize certain words.  If you hear of any software that
does not require such a training time, I would like to know about it.  He
also has a portable unit that uploads to the computer, so he can dictate
either at home or away."



Sherry S. Paul
LMS/STC
Charles H. Kelly Elementary School
6775 McVille Rd., Burlington, KY 41005
Boone County School System
606-334-4450/4454(fax)
spaul@boone.k12.ky.us

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