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Talking Computers

Computers have the ability to produce sound via an internal sound card. The speech output used in talking applications varies in quality and it is of two types:

Digitised: This is real speech or sound that has been recorded on the computer and is played back when initiated by the user. The quality of the speech is very good, and the author can make the material more interesting by speaking in a lively voice. However, the pupil is limited to hearing the sound clips that have been recorded. A welcome or reward message might be created using digitised speech, for example.

Synthesised: The words are spoken with a computer-generated voice. The speech sounds a little more robotic than a recorded voice but, as any text in the computer can be spoken using this technique, it is far more flexible. The child’s preferences for speed, pitch and volume can all be accommodated. This type of speech might be used to read back words that have been typed into a word processor.

The amount of speech support varies within educational software. In many applications, a positional mouse click is necessary to activate audio files whereas some applications have the capability to announce text entered and read the text in Menus.

Talking wordprocessors

When a person without sight wishes to compose text using a computer, there has to be the addition of speech output. The word processor must be able to provide feedback such as speaking the entered text, a read-back facility to check entered text and also provide access to functions such as print and save. Talking word processors have many benefits for the pupil with sight problems as they provide speech feedback as text is entered and offer speech feedback to proof-read text. For pupils with a amount of useful vision the appearance and layout of the screen can be configured to meet their individual needs.

Examples of talking word processors are:

• Intellitalk and Intellitalk II from Inclusive Technology. These two packages can echo characters, words and sentences and have the whole document read back. Intellitalk also gives the choice of having talking pull down Menus. They offer editing tools and make enlargement of text easy. They also work with the Intellikeys external keyboard which can scaffold learning and send text to the screen.
• Inclusive Writer from Widget Software, available from Inclusive Technology also has speech output. It also displays word context clue symbols, which aid writers who find spelling hard, and find homonyms difficult.
• Textease is a widely used word processor that has speech output if required. It can be configured for a very simple layout and for more detailed desktop publishing tasks. It is available from Softease.

Eventually a pupil who has no useful vision will need to use a program known as a screen reader or speech output system, which will give access to all areas of the computer. It is therefore vital that listening skills are developed early and the pupil becomes accomplished at extracting information through sound.

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