Built in speech recognition tools in mainstream and Assistive Technology tools
I started providing AT services a long, long time ago. Speech recognition software (a.k.a speech to text or voice recognition) was one of my frequent tools. When I say a long time ago, I mean it was version 5 of Dragon NaturallySpeaking.
Yeah, yeah. I know. I really am that old.
Back then, your choices for speech recognition were limited to a few things and honestly, Dragon was the only one that worked. Of course it was expensive, mostly because you needed a strong computer to run the software. Plus you HAD to wear a headset microphone and spend hours training it to know what you were saying.
Fast forward to 2022, speech recognition tools aren't so fancy anymore.
It's EVERYWHERE and it's free. Well, technically free because it comes with stuff. And it works. No training! (Most of the time. Sorry to my friends with speech intelligibility issues.)
Here is a few places to find built-in Speech Recognition in 2022:
- Android and iOS devices: microphone icon on your keyboard
- Google Docs: Voice Typing
- MacOS: System preferences>Keyboard>Dictation
- Microsoft Word: Edit>Start Word Dictation
Have Assistive Technology tool subscriptions? These have Speech Recognition built in too!
- Co:writer Universal
- Read&Write (all versions of it)
Talking to the air?
Don't forget that all your smart home devices are willing to type for you too: Siri, Alexa, etc.
But..what about Dragon?
I know not everyone is into Assistive Technology tools that do dozens of things. Like subscriptions for Read&Write and Co:writer Universal that has word prediction, speech recognition, text to speech, highlighting, makes french fries, makes your bed....
Most of the time these subscription tools end up more expensive to users because you have to sign up for yearly fees. Next thing you know you are feeling super guilty for not using all the tools. It's like the day you realize you haven't been using your gym membership and you could have been spending that money on something else.
Stand-alone speech recognition software like Dragon NaturallySpeaking still has its place in your list of AT tools. Especially if you have the need to dictate ALL THE TIME and accuracy is a MUST. For examples, users with high spinal cord injuries where dictation is their way of doing all writing and controlling their computer, for those with speech intelligibility issues where spending time correcting mistakes is time consuming, or for those with jobs where perfectly accurate dictation of weird and fancy vocabulary words are extremely important (doctors and lawyers).
For most of my AT users, built in speech recognition is exactly what they need!
But with so many options, where do you begin?
Honestly, you need to use an Occupational Therapist's frame of mind here. We start with the occupation (i.e. broad definition of occupation, meaning anything that occupies your time).
Then consider all the contextual factors: what device, how long are they writing, the vocabulary, are they in a quiet spot?
Then the pull in any other needs & preferences of the client and then go from there!
For example, if your AT user's biggest need is to write an email on an iPad, then the iOS speech recognition is the place to start. If the AT user is a college student writing papers and they use Google Docs. Start with Voice typing.
Once you get going, it's smack-down time!
Try different tools and figure out and do a test. Which one provides the best accuracy, most consistently, and with the most efficiency?
