COMPENSATORY EFFECTIVENESS OF SPEECH RECOGNITION ON THE WRITTEN COMPOSITION PERFORMANCE OF POSTSECONDARY STUDENTS WITH LEARNING-DISABILITIES

Seventeen males and twelve females wrote essays under three conditions : (a) without assistance; (b) using a human transcriber; and (c) using a speech recognition system. Students received higher holistic scores using speech recognition than when writing without assistance at a st atistically significant level (p = .048). In order to determine the re asons for the superior scores on the essays written using speech recog nition, 22 measures of fluency, vocabulary and syntax were computed. S everal measures showed a strong correlation with the holistic score. A multiple regression revealed that the best predictor of the holistic score was Words with Seven or More Letters. Further, the ratio of Word s with Seven or More Letters to Total Words differed significantly acr oss conditions (p = .0136), in favor of speech recognition, when compa red with receiving no assistance. A factor analysis identified three f actors that accounted for significant variation in holistic score: Fac tor 1, measures related to length of the essay (p = .0001+); Factor 2, measures of morphological complexity (p = .003); and Factor 3, main v erbs (p = .021). The authors suggest that the technology may have been successful because it ''encouraged'' the use of longer words, a power ful predictor of a holistic score.