have you looked at the program "write out loud" my highschooler uses it at school and loves it!
thanks for the suggestions everyone! it looks like naturally speaking is the one that will work for us.
msbobbi
Hello,
I am trying to locate voice to text software for my son to use for long writing assignments. I have found a couple programs but they are really expensive!! Does anyone have any referrals here? He just started middle school and I can see we are going to have a need really soon! He has a terrible time getting thoughts out and being able to write fast enough to keep up and not forget. We tried a tape recorder and it just didn't work out for him. If I can find this it would be a huge relief for him and me!!
Thanks!
msbobbi
Try googling assistive technology+voice to text. When I was looking for something to help my son with his dysgraphia, "assistive technology" brought up the most useful responses. My son (8th grade) has the same written output issues but has no problem typing. He uses a Dana by Alphasmart, which is a laptop sized word processor, which the school supplied. HTH! Hi,Dear Freedom Scientific Customer,
We are pleased to announce the release of WYNN 5.1.
WYNN 5.1 is full of exciting new features, including:
~ Digital Talking Books (DAISY and NIMAS books) support
~ Further enhancements to support the industry-leading solution for reading Web-based content
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~ RealSpeak Solo~ and ETI-Eloquence~, the latest voices from Nuance. RealSpeak Solo from Nuance is recognized as the most human-sounding speech synthesizer.
WYNN's new Web features include:
~ The ability to have hyperlinks spoken while hovering the mouse over them
~ Auto-completion of Web addresses
~ Web information extracted into one document
~ Enhanced ability to find text on Web pages.
All of these easy-to-use features provide differentiated learning, enabling the reader to better focus, read, and comprehend text. These features build upon the completely redesigned Web browsing technology introduced in WYNN 5.0.
Some of the Web-based features in WYNN 5 include: Web text being read out loud; WebMasking~, the patented feature that highlights selected text on a Web page by line, sentence, or paragraph while blocking out distracting elements like advertisements; highlighting directly on a live Web page; and extracting the highlighted text into a WYNN document with one mouse click.
WYNN 5.1 is available for purchase now. If you have already purchased WYNN 5.0, you many download the free update to 5.1 from our website. Owners of previous versions of WYNN may upgrade for a small percentage of the original purchase price. You can get more information about WYNN 5.1 by visiting our website, www.freedomscientific.com/lsg, or by contacting your sales representative or Regional Manager. You can find contact information for your Regional Manager at http:// www.freedomscientific.com/lsg/about/contact_us.asp#regmap.
You may also contact Loni Atton, our Inside Sales Specialist, at 800-444-4443 x1032 from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM EST.
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We look forward to continuing to support you in the use of our products.
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I believe there is something called dragon dictate..is this what you are looking for something that will print what your child says?
Also can you get the school to do an assistive technology evaluation on your son and then perhaps they can pay for the device. Does your son have an IEP? If so ,this might make getting the schools to provide the technology a bit easier.
joemom38992.3038773148Thanks for the replies everyone. What I am looking for is the kind where you talk and it types for you. So far I found the Dragon Naturally Speaking seems to be the most useful and it runs -200 for the home versions. I looked there before but only found the professional for 0 and up. I did a classic ADHD move and I only skimmed the site in about 30 seconds. I have revisited it and it's looking good. I am going to do the google search suggested and see what I come up with.
If I could get this for him so he can focus on thoughts and not getting them down it would probably change his life!
We use (and like) Dragon Naturally Speaking, Preffered version 9 (just upgraded from version 8), it comes with a microphone/headset. They also have standard (no microphone/headset) and proffessional versions (for legal and medical offices). It works with Word, Excel, e-mail, etc. Nuance makes it.
http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/preferred/
Your child will have to train it for 20 minutes to use it. It can continue to train as it is used. If it is used in a noisy area do not update the program after each use; it will eventially corrupt on the noisy words. It can be trained for more than 1 user. My daughter does alot of her school work using the dragon.
HTH
vickie38992.3281134259Dragon naturally speaking is a great product! When I owned my computer store I sold quite a few copies. You should check out and see if you can get a student version seeing as it's for a disability. Check with CHADD and see if there are any resources. Many software stores will discount if for a good cause.
Dragon works well and takes very little training to start it. It can get up to 98 or 99.9 percent accurate and every version improves.
Also - check out www.ncix.com and sometimes they have bargain deals!
I'm glad to hear some positives about Dragon - maybe they can tell you a good way to go about "training" the computer - or maybe later versions are better. My experience with it was that it was VERY time consuming to train, and not very accurate, even for good readers. We were trying to use it with people who had had strokes, and lost their reading/writing ability, but still wanted to write letters or email. Even another one, who could read and speak normally, was unable to get it to a point where it was practical to use. Can some of you who used it successfully give a little more information on the training of it? I hate to see someone spend money on it if it's as frustrating as it was for me. (this was roughly 3-5 years ago - I don't remember what version.
We use Kurzweil at my school. I personally haven't used it but a LOT of the kids use it to read back what they've written, or what someone scanned in. I haven't seen the writing portion in use, but the advantage of some (maybe Kurzweil is one I'm thinking of) is that some of them have the ability to both write what your son dictates, or read print out loud to your son. If reading is a difficulty for him, or just slow, he could benefit from both. I have heard of writeoutloud, but don't know much about it. Our Special Ed teacher was trying it out last year, but went with Kurzweil.
The absolute number ONE reason that dragon is hard for some to train is the trainer. Often we feel we ..... must.... speak... in .... staccato .... like some william shatner clone. Talk naturally (hence the name)! It's actually the way it's designed to work - with one word naturally flowing into the other. Faster is actually better and that's hard to fathom and often we slow right down and the program doesn't get the expected result. That could be hard for a stroke victim - but if they can flow even if slurred the speech will train fine.
A good mic helps so much too. The one with dragon works with most (the good one with the amplifier) but also don't keep it up against your lips. Again - instinctively it's what we do when it should be a hand's length (or more) from the mouth. It's how its' designed.
Also the technology in the last 2 years is light years ahead! Look at how it works if you call microsoft to reinstall windows XP (most of us have or will). Talk fast and it works so well! I went very fast last time out of losing my cool and it actually kept up number for number! Very impressed the new algorythms work very well.