When to Train your Dragon

School is out and six weeks of summer holidays stretch before us. I know most people look back over a year in December or January but I, who was a teacher for years, start my year in September so the summer holidays are when I look back over the year.

It is nearly a year ago that I bought and installed my voice-activated software. At the time I was extremely sceptical of the product because, years ago my darling husband got me a voice activated computer program that was meant to be able to type the words I spoke. He took our new baby daughter out for the day so I could set it up, but two hours later I had not got beyond the third word which I remember was boat. I must have said it 100 times the wretched computer would not /could not recognise my voice. I called my husband home. That was 12 years ago.

Nearly a year ago I was at a meeting at my daughter’s school for parents of children who are in learning support. A mother told me that she had just got a voice activated typing program for her dyslexic husband and it only took a short time to set it up.  This meant he could now use a computer.  I did some research and ordered one for myself. I asked the sales person if it was mainly brought for dyslexic users and to my surprise she said no. It was many used by people with poor mobility or doctors!

While many products don’t live up to expectations, I have to say in this case it has. I love my voice-activated software and it has completely changed the way I communicate. I now send lengthy e-mails and even enjoy “writing”. For someone who had a genuine fear of putting anything in writing it is quite an achievement. I am very dyslexic and because of my age it was missed at school and college.  Spell check is great, but often I get the word so wrong that the poor computer has no idea what I am trying to say.

Last week I was helping my younger daughter with her homework, she was dictating quietly to me and then I was talking to the computer to type up her homework. I know she should have been doing it herself but we were running out of time!  Then the phone rang and I told her I would be back later to help. Ten minutes later I walked into the room to find her wearing the headphones and talking to the computer. I told her it wouldn’t work as it was programmed to my voice. However we obviously speak in a very similar way because the computer had understood most of what she said!

My only criticism of the system is that everybody else in the room needs to be quiet while I’m using it. Our computer is in the main living room (so that I can monitor my daughters online), this means no TV if I am typing!

The voice activated software that I bought was Dragon speech recognition software. I’m sure there are others on the market but I have no experience of these. On their web site is a very moving video clip in memory of Stuart Mangan who was paralysed from the neck down who used this software to give him more independence. It makes me realise how lucky I am that I just have a problem with spelling.

While my own attitude was always “who needs to write ‘enormous’ or ‘gigantic’ when ‘big’ will do?” I now ask myself how long do I make my elder dyslexic daughter (who has a stronger Yorkshire accent than me) and my younger daughter, try and use a keyboard to type before I buy them their own Dragon?