Has anyone tryed any of the dragon software.

[trashman]

Hi all,I was wondering if anybody out there has used the dragon naturally speaking software? and if so is it whorth the money.

Thanks for your input .

Trashman

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[kc5jck]

There is a free app “Dragon Dictation” for the iPhone powered by Dragon Naturally Speaking. You might check it out before spending money for computer software.

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[Tiddler]

I don’t have an iPhone, but I have tried the software for the PC. It’s VERY good. It was a slightly older, cheaper version that I used with some students and they all had a lot of success with it. It’s surprisingly accurate and easy to use once it’s all downloaded – that bit was a pain.

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[Anonymous]

I do IT work and I’ve set this up for a number of clients. If you have a normal voice without any strong accents, lisps, very high or low tone then it really works well, like 97% accuracy or so.

I’ve never taken the time to get really comfortable with the advanced controls, I find it’s more useful for older folks who can’t type quickly than it would be for people with ADHD as it still requires a lot of attention to operate properly fully and I think even when it’s working well it would be hard to get into a rhythm writing with it.

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[laddybug3]

I did but the software took longer then typing a page did. It came up with totally different words. I said, “The theories of obesity are, process foods, boredom, lack of exercise, and many others. These are the main reasons that came across in my research.” Dragon typed this: The thoughts of Bess are: food, (a word I never heard of before), lack of aerobics–that is were I stopped. Oh, it took me 20 minutes to get those words down. I guessed I talked too fast, or maybe it was my midwestern accent. Who knows?

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[billd]

Why?

How about using what’s built into Windows 7? That works pretty well if you have a PC with W7

Or some free apps if you have a need to have the computer or phone type what you cannot.

Frankly, I can type far better and faster, and don’t like sitting and talking to a computer. Creeps me out. And I generally have to go edit and fix things anyway. LOL – in my case, it’s a case of “if you want something done right…..”

But honestly and seriously since you did ask a simple honest question, I know the counselors at work have gotten it for handicapped clients, and it does work.

There are other things as well…………..

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[Anonymous]

Yeah accents and weird voices really don’t work well. If you have a lisp it’s basically unusable.

If you master Dragan Naturally speaking and you have a really fast computer I’d say it can be about as fast as typing. So the reason why most of my clients need it is that they are old school and never learned to type properly.

Seriously one of them has written 3 books with 1 finger, and another would dictate every single email via a secretary. It can be a great thing if typing is a problem for you for some reason. As for as ADHD I really don’t see it being helpful but it’s getting better with every version so who knows.

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[Anonymous]

Has anyone has problems taking there concerta exactly as prescribed??

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[Anonymous]

Trashman, I don’t personally have any experience using Dragon Speak myself but my school board (we’ve got 150,000 students) has used it for students with LDs. The issues/problems that would crop up repeatedly were getting the software to recognize their speech.

Since the purpose of it is to make writing easier for someone with an LD, who had difficulty writing on their own, it was important for the speech to text function be workable. Otherwise, it was just an exercise in frustration for the kids.

My school board is now making a big push towards the Premier software system which can really do some fabulous things. Speech to text, text translated into spoken word, it can also scan passages of text and shorten it down into a little paragraph if you want. Then you don’t have to manouver your way through a long piece of writing to know what the message or story was about.

It’s getting to the point where we won’t even have to think anymore. This stuff does it all.

The other big software push is the ‘Kurzweil’ software and I believe it does all the same stuff. In fact, our board was offering a bunch of seminars on its usage for teachers in some of their ‘contained’ special ed classes. I stupidly didn’t sign up thinking my class of kiddos didn’t fall into the right category to get me the training. Wrong. At an after school meeting with my psychologist (well, the class’ pscycologist) and SpecEd coordinator, I found out that our behaviour people have pushed to get our little guys supplied with the software too.

My class is ‘special’ because of behaviour concerns. Big behaviours that make it unsafe for them to be in a regular classroom at least until they get all their other issues sorted out. Anyway, when they’ve finished with all the testing on the kids, most of them are found to be also saddled with at least one LD, to go along with their other diagnoses.

I’ll see what I can find out about Premier and Kurzweil. Premier is available to any of our families to use at home on their computers. (something about the writer/designer feeling literacy should be available to everyone, not just a privileged few). It could also be that our board paid hefty fees to make it available to everyone. Any teacher that I’ve talked to about has raved about it.

Kurzweil comes with awesome accolades (I think it’s now thought of as much better than Dragon Speak which is much older) but its main issue could be that it has a heft price tag attached to it which is why my board has used it more ‘sparingly’, shall we say.

I’m not a techie type person. Computers are fine but I don’t like having to learn software programs with all kinds of ins and outs.

Other possibilities (if you don’t want it to read articles or stories to you but just need a word processing program that will do predictive spelling for you, there is also CoWriter and WordQ. I’ve started my guys using it this year (kicking and screaming I might add. They only want to play on the computer, not do work on it!).

One of my boys was so excited when he used it on Monday to write all about his weekend. He would sound out the first letter or two of a word and then the predictive part kicks in. It then lists words that it thinks you were trying to spell. One, two’ or three letters and it comes up with a list of words that would be reasonable suggestions according to whatever topic you’re writing about.

Anyway, this student of mine was so thrilled to use it for his first time. “It makes me do really smart work!!!! How does it make me so smart???” He was so happy and pleased with himself. That is what this software is all about!

BTW Trashman, is it getting cold out there in Wpg yet? 😆

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[trashman]

Thank-you zsazsa, some of you know about my problems with spelling and typing. this is ongoing due to my LDs and my unrelieable memory.I typ and read so slow that it is hard to read long posts or focus to write what I really want to say. so for those of you that are very fast keyboarding I am trully envious. if I respond to a post it is only that I have something to say that I feel it is important enough for me to keep trying.

if it was not for my strong use of speach I would have beem classafied as handycaped,because of my low normal IQ . for those that think my post needed to be dismissed I am sorry you feel this way.

just to inform all of you how long it takes me to tpy this post .it has been jus over half an hour.

so again thank you very much zsazsa.

regards trashman

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[memzak]

Trashman, don’t worry about how long it takes you to read and respond to posts It takes me forever to formulate an answer to a post and get it on the screen. I spend a lot of time on a public internet connection that logs me off after two hours and I can’t tell you how many times I have logged on, read something I wanted to respond to, written a response only to find out that my two hours were up and I would have to log on again to start all over again. This has happened to me so often that I type all of my posts in Word first and copy and paste into the website. That way if I have been logged off I have not lost two hours of writing and editing, I can just copy and paste again. Just keep reading and responding, you are among friends here. This is one site where spelling does not count!

LOL, it just happened again. I was closer than I thougt to the two hours being up. I had to log in again to post this 😆

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[billd]

trashman I’d be really happy to put you into contact with one of our counselors who deals with that software – and OTHER software.

I think he’d talk with you even though you aren’t a client of IVRS.

Or I can put you into contact with a counselor here who HAS ADHD………………

I’m sure they’ll talk “off the record”.

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[Curlymoe115]

I have tried the dragon naturally speaking professional, as some of the others said it has a problem recognizing speech and I do not have any speech impediments, I simply speak too fast and my words tend to blend together. It is funny to hear what it thinks I said but it does nothing to get it down on paper. By the time I trained it to recognize what I said on page one I was already on page 6 by typing it. There are a number of programs that do the same thing but whether they can recognize your speech pattern any better remains to be seen.

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[trashman]

HI. I have dragon student. I have used this program and used it since xmas. with my learning and memory problems . if you wright a lot of e mails, then this program will learn faster. because of my memory and poor understanding of writing structure , my success with this program is has been disappointing . hope this helps.

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[Author]

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