jdc@naucse.UUCP (John Campbell) (10/17/88)
My son has a spelling disorder. When he tries to "sound" out a word, unlike most of you, he can't visualize the word. He instead seems to rely upon his interpretations of the sounds he hears. Suffers of spelling disorders are often subjected to misunderstanding and prejudice. If you don't know already, for some people, spelling errors are not due to laziness or stupidity. I would like to open a discussion on what spelling checkers might best assist this group of people. In order to test various spelling checkers (namely vspell, and ispell on unix, DECSpell on VMS, and Spellstar from Wordstar), I read a paragraph from a book on plays to my son. My son typed in each word as I pronounced it. This material was very difficult, and resulted in 11 mistakes out of the 40 words presented. While my son did not always know the right spelling, he was often aware that he had used the wrong spelling. The frustration level on both sides got very high (I actually helped him spell "status" without meaning to). If you look at the types of errors that were made, you can see that it would be difficult for a person with this problem to look words up in a dictionary. What is needed is a spelling checker that can suggest alternative spellings based on close sounds. I ran the paragraph my son typed in through four spelling checkers, allowing the spelling program the opportunity to correct each word. The results are shown below, vspell could not suggest any corrections, ispell was able to suggest five corrections, and both Wordstar and DECSpell suggested the same eight words (including "stacher" as "stature"). (Maxwell's last name, "Anderson", and Eugene's last name, "O'Neill", were left out during the reading.) ---------------------Original Text-------------------------- Maxwell was an American dramatist of considerable stature and a contemporary of Eugene. During the period of Eugene's temporary eclipse between 1934 and 1946, Maxwell's status in the theater was at its highest, and many people rated him above Eugene. ---------------------Source as typed by my son--------------- Maxwell was an amarican dermadist of consitrabal stacher and a cantemprary of Ugean. During the peried of Ugean's temperary ecleps between 1934 and 1946, Maxwell's status in the theader was at its hightest, and many people rated him above Ugean. -----------------Results of four spelling checkers------------------ Correct Son/vspell ispell DECSpell/WordStar ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ American amarican american American dramatist dermadist dermadist dermadist considerable consitrabal consitrabal consitrabal stature stacher stacher stature contemporary cantemprary cantemprary contemporary Eugene. Ugean. Ugean. Ugean. period peried period period Eugene's Ugean's Ugean's Ugean's temporary temperary temporary temporary eclipse ecleps ecleps eclipse theater theader theater theater highest, hightest, highest, highest, Eugene. Ugean. Ugean. Ugean. If you have access to a different spelling checker you might see how well it stacks up to the ones listed here. If you can beat DECSpell or Wordstar I would love to know--especially if it is a public domain spelling checker. I'm also interested in seeing a discussion on how to make the corrections that seem to be called for in this sample. Does anyone know if DECSpell is based on soundex? Does anyone have an algorithm that would correct "consitrabal"--which seems nearly equal to "stacher"? Are there studies that have been done in this area? -- John Campbell ...!arizona!naucse!jdc unix? Sure send me a dozen, all different colors.