I’m often asked whether Dragon will also help people with dyslexia and the answer is a very definite yes, and I have helped many to improve the quality of their paperwork with voice recognition software!
When I visit, I ask what are the biggest problems with paperwork and very often the response is “I know what I want to write but I just cannot get it onto the paper, but I can talk about it!”
That response virtually justifies using Dragon with some qualifications…
Firstly, if you can talk about it, you can clearly write it, because this is what Dragon does!
Interestingly however, it does not make spelling mistakes because it has such a large vocabulary. So proof reading is still very important and Dragon provides two tools to help make this process easier. It is also possible to ensure that words such as ‘weather’ and ‘whether’ are used in the correct context.
I often carry out timing exercises near the end of a training session to see how long it takes someone with dyslexia to type a piece of text, and how long it takes to do the same piece of work with Dragon – the answer is generally that Dragon is generally three of four times faster than typing and the record is nine times faster!
An added bonus is that the quality of writing is also better as people with dyslexia often use shorter words that are simpler to spell, and say that this makes their work look unprofessional, but when using Dragon they can easily use better vocabulary and often to think about what they are doing to stop waffling!
I recently carried out training for a lady in Kent who had to submit a piece of work and when it was returned with no errors, she commented that she nearly had a heart attack because this never happened!
