Innovations and Insights
I n this issue we have a forum on the use of speech recognition systems. Technology has come on at such a pace in the computer world that is is now possible to dictate into a microphone and see the words come up on the word-processor screen. For many people this has become an immediate solution to dyslexic difficulties, and they can often be heard to cry, 'Soon we won't need any writing at all, it will all be done on computer'. This, I think, subsumes a much greater technology than we have at present, like Star Trek I believe! However, there are more serious questions, such as whether these systems actually are beneficial to dyslexics, as new ideas do not necessarily give the benefits hoped for.
One panacea for dyslexia was thought to be spellcheckers. 'You don't have to worry about spelling any more, as you can run it through a spellchecker'. Of course, things weren't as simple as that, as there are all kinds of problems in using spellcheckers. They were not, and still are not, able to cope with very bizarre spellings, have problems with homophones, require the ability to recheck and some degree of revisualization skill. The use of speech-to-word processing is something that we all need to look at carefully in order to evaluate its efficacy with dyslexics.
There are two main articles in this section that take slightly opposing viewpoints. One is a preliminary pilot study on evaluating the use of speech recognition software with university students. The other is a description of its use in a specialist school for dyslexic children. One difference between the two appears to be the particular software that may be used as an adjunct to the basic speech recognition software itself.
Also in this section are some comments and viewpoints about the use of speech recognition software with dyslexics. These are from the Information Service, the Dyslexia Unit and an undergraduate respectively, all at the University of Wales, Bangor. We would urge readers to send their own ideas in via the letter columns. We would also hope to provide in the future full-blown evaluation studies on the use of such systems, so we would encourage readers to get out their pens (or their microphones) and get writing! M. THOMSON