Frank.Whitney@f1000.n261.z1.fidonet.org (Frank Whitney) (07/18/90)
Index Number: 9190 >I am looking for information on a system to assist a person with a >hearing impairment. This person is elderly and recently suffered a >total hearing loss. She cannot understand sign language. >Unfortunately, her and her husband's social life has nearly ended, >and their personal life is spent writing pages to each other. > >They wish to find a system which will help them to communicate. I >am particularly interested in finding a device which will allow >people to speak into a microphone and will then translate their >speech into written text on a terminal. I understand that such >technology is relatively new and rather scarce, yet this couple >would be exremely grateful for any information on this or any other >system which will help them to improve their communication. > >If you have any information, please send e-mail to > >Elizabeth Tallant >ta00est@unccvax.uncc.edu The system that I've found to produce the best results is the DragonDictate 30,000 made by the company listed below. Dragon Systems, Inc. 90 Bridge Street Newton, MA 02158 Other systems that I've seen or heard about don't come anywhere near in their ability to produce text in a fairly timely manner. I've demonstrated this system at both the President's Committee on Equal Employment Of Disabled People in Washington and at the RESNA conference in Washington this year. Everybody that saw the exhibit were amazed at how well the product worked. It does need to adapt to the speakers voice and it also needs a short pause between each word so it might not be suitable. However, at the present time it is the best product out on the market. I typed this entire message using that system and it only took me a few minutes. If you'd like any more information please feel free to call me at (301)-725-2169. I will promise to give you a users point of view as to the products capabilities and limitations. One of the nice things about the DragonDictate is that you can create macros that can produce up to 500 distinct keystrokes for each utterance. That way you can configure your system to respond to your most frequently used phrases. To be completely honest speech recognition has not gotten to the point where it would probably be easier for a completely able bodied deaf to use speech input over writing notes to each other. If other factors are involved then this might be a good choice. I hope that I've been able to he of some assistance. Yours Truly, Frank H. Whitney, Jr. This message was typed in it's entirety without once touching the keyboard so you can see for certain disabilities it is a very powerful tool and a fairly easy one to use at that. -- Via Opus Msg Kit v1.01 -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!261!1000!Frank.Whitney Internet: Frank.Whitney@f1000.n261.z1.fidonet.org