Age group for which this tool is beneficial:
Elementary School
Middle School
High School & Beyond

To what category does this tool belong?
High-tech tools (requires power supply and lots of training)

Skills strengthened with the help of this tool:
Academic

How does the tool work?
Voice recognition systems allow your child to use a computer by speaking to it. He needs to spend several hours interacting with the computer until the computer responds accurately to the nuances -- accent and pronunciation -- of his voice. Recent versions interpret speech with a great deal of accuracy, and record the child's speech faster than most students can type.

What is the benefit to the user?
These systems benefit students who generate ideas orally more effectively than they can in writing, and the faster systems allow kids who think more quickly than they can transcribe to capture ideas they might otherwise have lost.

Other information to consider:
Your child needs to be patient during the process of training the computer to learn his speech patterns, and younger kids may benefit from having a coach assist them through this process. A student who has difficulty reading the word-processed text may not be able to utilize this technology effectively without a corresponding text-to-voice system.

Many students use the voice-to-text technology as an adjunct to traditional word processing. In other words, your child may switch back and forth between typing and speaking.

The above content was researched and written by Frank Sopper.