C.U.N.Y. Accessibility Conference

Dragon Naturally Speaking Professional v. 10

Nuance Corporation

C.U.N.Y. Accessibility Conference

Nicole Dory;Information Systems

Technical Assistant,

Multi-Media Regional Center,College of Staten

Island

Carlos M. Herrera; Assistant Director; AT

SpecialistServices for Students

with Disabilities, Queensborough

Community College

What is speech recognition software?

• Allows the user to control a computer and software using spoken commands. Most often used in combination with the computer keyboard to compose documents.

• While there are various products on the market, C.A.T.S. supports Dragon Naturally Speaking Professional ver. 10.

Dragon Naturally Speaking Professional ver. 10

Key improvements in Dragon Naturally Speaking Professional ver. 10

•More accurate speech recognition•Reduced training time•Windows Vista* and XP compatible•Search the Web by voice using Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or AOL

Key improvements in Dragon Naturally Speaking Professional ver. 10

•Microsoft Office 2003, 2007•Outlook 2000, XP, 2003, 2007•PowerPoint 2000, XP, 2003, 2007•Network Ready•Say web and browser links by voice

Operating System: Windows • C.A.T.S. recommended

configuration for Dragon Naturally

Speaking Professional ver. 10

Hardware

CPU: Intel® Pentium4® or later or AMD Athlon 64 1 GHz or later. (SSE2 instruction set required). Memory: 512 MB RAM + (1 GB RAM for Windows Vista™) Free hard disk space: 1 GB (2 GB for localized non-English versions) L2 Cache: 512 KB

Plantronics DSP 400 USB Headset Andrea NC-181 Monaural 3.5mm Headset Plantronics Voyager 520 Bluetooth Headset

Dragon Naturally Speaking

• Create and edit documents• Hands free navigation of

computer menus and operating system

• Copy, move and print files• Create and manage e-mail• Surf the internet• Even create PowerPoint

slides!

• With minimal training of the user and the software, Dragon Naturally Speaking Professional ver. 10 allows users to efficiently perform many computer based tasks

Pros and Cons of using Dragon

• Allows user to operate a computer by voice commands;

• Frees up cognitive working space allowing for continuous dictation;

• Minimizes handwriting legibility concerns;

• Always spells words correctly (but doesn't always recognize words correctly);

• Requires large amounts of memory to store voice files;

• Can be difficult to use in classroom settings, due to noise interference;

• Requires each user to train software to recognize voice, hard for poor decoders;

• Makes errors, can be frustrating without adequate support;

Who can benefit from Dragon Naturally Speaking?

Students who have or are:

Learning disabilitiesMobility impairedHave a repetitive

stress injuryDeaf or Hard of

Hearing*

Students using speech recognition demonstrated:

• Enhanced confidence• Improved decoding, spelling

and comprehension• Increased vocabulary

Dragon and L.D. students

• Student can focus on expressing their thoughts instead of their spelling or typing abilities• Software can read back document

to student for proofreading• Fosters independence from scribe

or transcriber

Landmark College and Dragon

Landmark College and Dragon

Landmark College is a private, two-year liberal arts institution of higher learning in Putney, Vermont, that serves a population of approximately 485 students with dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and other diagnosed learning disabilities.

Landmark College and Dragon

• “A student in our summer program was struggling with his writing—rushing to get out his thoughts and skipping words he couldn’t spell—to the point where one of his teachers would have to fill in every fifth word or so in his papers,” said Burris. “After training on Dragon for approximately one hour and fifteen minutes, thisstudent was able to go to the computer lab and complete a high quality, six-page paper on Helen Keller in a single evening. This accomplishment really boosted his self-confidence.”

Dragon and students with mobility impairments

• No keyboard input required• Macro programmability• Customizable vocabulary for

specific disciplines

Faculty uses of Dragon

• Use Dragon to create transcripts that allow hearing-disabled students to follow along with video lectures used in online college courses

• Grade papers and reports

• Provide transcripts of lectures

• I moved to China to teach spoken English to Chinese college students. I have been working at Wu Yi University, in Fujian province. I use voice recognition on the computer as a way for my students to practice their pronunciation of English. It works very well. They speak into the microphone and we look on the screen to see how the program was or was not able to recognize their speech. They can then modify their speaking until it is recognized by the software. You have no idea how well this works. So that is how I am using your software.

Dragon and D/HH students

• CART services• Remote CART• Editable, searchable notes• Verbatim transcripts of classroom

dialog• Student is responsible for deriving

meaning

Remote CART using Dragon; Student perspective

Remote captioning using Dragon;Captionist’s perspective

Thank you!