SPEECH-RECOGNIZING COMPUTERS - A WRITTEN-COMMUNICATION TOOL FOR STUDENTS WITH LEARNING-DISABILITIES

Students with specific learning disabilities (LD) in written compositi on may experience difficulties that restrict their ability to demonstr ate in writing what they know and can communicate orally. Voice-input technology now allows users to speak into a microphone and have their words appear on a computer screen in a word processing format, ready f or revision and editing. This exploratory study reports the efforts of one sixth-grade student to learn to use this technology to assist wri tten communication. The findings suggest that the technology holds pro mise for students with LD when it is refined to allow less difficulty in using it.