Does anyone use this type of software and if so, please share your experience. Particularly, software that can not only type documents by voice recognition, but type into online forms, such as in NeuroTalk threads.

• Cost
• Brand
• Likes...Dislikes
• etc.

Hi Carolyn,
I used Dragon dictate for quite a while 2 years back.
You need a lot of patience, but it is worth it when you finally get it "trained". It only works with your voice and if it misspells a word, you have to train it to recognise that word.
A funny story about it is I was showing it to my son and his wife,
and was dictating and it was working fine. However, something distrascted them and they started talking. Any noise it does not recognise causes it to type rubbish. I said to it, "You stupid computer", and it simply replired,
"Whatever"!!!!
I always said it had a mind of its own.
Cheers
Ron

used both, I found Viavoice to be easier to use and more accurarte. It worked well right out of the box. The commands are more logical ans easy to use too.

Charlie

My husbands office installed Dragon Naturally Speaking on everyones computer a few years ago after 2 employees both had to go on workmans comp in the same month for repetative strain injuries from typing.

During that time, my husband was working from home a lot because he was going through chemotherapy.

Long story short - his office gave us a copy of the dragon naturally speaking for our home. I used it a little bit, and it was very easy to use. The only reason I stopped using it is because we live in a condo and voices in our living room carry into the common-area hallway and I didn't want my neighbors to be able to hear me

One thing I noticed with the dragon was the it worked a LOT better with a high quality microphone. At first, I was using the microphone that was part of the computer monitor and the dragon made a loot of mistakes and it was hard to teach it to learn my words.

But when we bought a higher quality microphone that was part of a headset the dragon worked a LOT better. The difference was night and day. I think part of the improvement was having the microphone closer to my mouth because it was a headset, but the largest part of the improvement was simply because the micophone was higher quality.

I hope taht helps,
Liz


PS - several members of the Thoracic Outlet Syndrome forum here at NeuroTalk use voice recognition software, I'm going to post a link to this post in that forum and ask people if they would be willing to come here to share their experiences.

I ahve used Dragon dictate 6.0 going to have office of voc rehab try to upgreade to 8.0. I also used OCR optical character recognition software.

I used the OCR in police work with all my forms and good scanner and good computer RAM is needed.
The same with Dragon, if you do not have alot of ram but have good steay speech it will not keep up with you. I did upgrade my mic from the one they provided, mic placement to the side of the mouth is needed as if you breath, it can type in a word it thought you said. Newer versions and a good mic will not pic up back ground noise. My family tried freaking me out like they use to when I used it to sing or talk over me, but it did not work this mic at all.

When you mention parkinsons though, are there speech problems? I realize the physical ones, but in speech recognition it may depend. MY 10 year old try to read the stories for it to have her in the data base and it could just not recognise her little voice. She has a strong voice, but sweet, not adult like.

Voice regoc is supposed to work for accents and I do have a small lisp, it works good after using it for eyars now, I think it knows me better then me in patterns.

OCR, you scan the form, the one I had I first scanned it to recocnize, then I had to enter another screen to enter the fiels I wanted open to accept WORD document entry.

I could work on the form, change spelling, make lines longer, and edit it. Then save and highlighted the lines that were to be now word acceptable on the template I created.

You can often find the software on Ebay fairly inexpensive.
Dianne

here are some links to other VRS-

this site covers many brands and tips-
http://www.out-loud.com/

voice software
http://ivos.comunx.com/
http://www.talkingdesktop.com/frequent.htm
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/as...664011033.aspx

Thanks everyone for you input. Truly appreciated.

Plantronics makes the best headsets. You must have a good quality microphone for either program to work properly.

Charlie

Hiya

I'm Rosie - I usually post on the RSD/ movement disorders forums.

From personal experience I have found that voice activated software is ok but there are other options depending on your level of mobility and the sort of things you type.

I use dragon naturally speaking version 9 (I think!) which is far superior to the previous version - it actually recognises my voice! (I can't speak very loudly or very well because of dystonia and I have a very English accent). I am not a wonderful fan of the software but it does allow you to write documents, go on MSN and post on forums such as this. As other people have mentioned a good quality headset / microphone is vital - and it is much easier if it is wireless - because there is nothing worse then getting muddled up in wires and having to wait for someone to disentangle you. I know that over here it is possible to try the software first and recieve training with it - if you decided to go the voice recognition software route then definetinly consider training - it makes a HUGE difference! However I still also use a mouthstick/ set of switches etc etc etc for when I can't talk properly (or my carer is in bed and doesn't want to be woken up because the headset has fallen off), and I also use a text prediction system as well which speeds up switch/ stick typing.

However, depending on your needs there may be better ways to go - switches, eye gaze systems, smaller/ larger keyboards/ EMG bands etc.

I don't know if there is a computer accessibility place near you - I had an assesment done by the computer lab of a university who also helped to make adaptive equipment. They were brilliant, went through loads of questions with me and identified the equipment which would help the most.

Also what are you going to do about a mouse? Dragon has one but personally I don't like it. There are lots of options - an eye gaze mouse, specially built up ones, IR dots etc etc..

According to cost the most economical will be a version of Dragon/ IBM BUT there is no point stimping on the software/ hardware as it will just mean you get frustrated trying to type things etc.

Hope this has been a vague help! If you have any questions I am happy to try and answer them!

Rosie xxx

... comes courtesy of Dragon Naturally Speaking (Preferred Edition) voice recognition software. It's by a company called, I think, Nuance.

My Parkinson's is one sided. I used to type slowly with two fingers, now I type very slowly with one. I've found Dragon Naturally Speaking excellent and easy to use.

I have it installed on my work and home laptops. My work involves me producing a large number of, sometimes lengthy, technical documents which include many technical terms - it's quite easy to add new words to the built-in vocabulary.

At home I 'type' a lot of e-mails, and I'm also writing a novel. So, all in all, I use the product extensively.

One word of advice: if you're planning to use it on a laptop then it's probably best to get the wireless option that includes a Plantronics wireless microphone headset. This connects via USB and includes its own soundcard - the soundcard built into most laptops isn't up to the job.

I hope this helps - get back to me if you want any more information.

By the way, the first few chapters of my novel may be found on:

http://iantaylor.typepad.com/blue_ice/

Good luck,
Ian.