In Bob Follansbee's "Update on continuous speech", which he states will
be updated in the coming weeks, he argues that discrete speech is easier
for many people than continuous speech, a point with which I strongly
disagree. 4. Learning to write: Dr. Follansbee says
"Since mature users are generally already familiar with the distinctions
in voice and style between speaking and writing, they can adjust their
speech-like dictation to reflect their intention to create a written
document. This would be much more difficult for the inexperienced young or
learning
disabled user."
I am not sure what Dr. Follansbee is addressing here. I think he is
saying that written language is different from spoken language. Aside
from the obvious neurological differences, I think the intention of this
statement is concerned with style.
I think this style works. I think it works great! (Of course, I almost
always use speech recognition to write). Having your words transposed
onto paper creates easily understood sentences. A tendency toward
jargon diminishes. The twisted syntax that often results from a "one
word at a time" approach diminishes. People with no real assumptions
about how to construct a written sentence find that they already are
constructing sentences orally, and they can adapt this method to create
written documents.
Frankly, I have reservations about most people's writing and style,
including Dr. Follansbee. Most people have difficulty finding the
perfect words to fit the medium. In general, much technical written
language is obtuse and difficult to understand. Dr. Follansbee's
sentences are often run-ons, and his use of hyphens might signal the
revival of a underused key,. (Look at the success of the "@".) Hey,
somebody gave him a doctorate and a good job. Who am I to complain!
What I intend to demonstrate here is that successful writing styles are
quite varied. (and easy to criticize) Learning to write and edit are
processes that can successfully go in a variety of directions.
The area where many special educators become involved with the student
is when they do not develop writing skills at a normal rate. These are
the students on I.E.P.'s., with written language discrepancies
highlighted. These are the students who are unable to write a sentence
independently. Many of these students end up dictating their sentences
to a teacher or associate, who then writes down the words the student is
saying. It is important that these students are able to produce
something by themselves in order to develop their skills. The most
important aspect of writing (or speaking, we all know people who suffer
from diarrhea of the mouth) is the editing process. Because speech
recognition allows students to get more information into text without
anybody assisting them, they need to spend additional time editing their
work. This is often a skill that is poorly developed.
Let these students get something on paper quickly, and independently,
so they can learn how to edit their written words. Allow the teachers
to work with already constructed sentences, not spend all their time
trying to coax something on to paper, then not have enough time to teach
the editing process.
I think editing is really the most important aspect of speech
recognition and writing. I would like to address this in future
articles
David Garbose, MA CCC SLP
Newspeak Communications
Charlotte Vermont
dave@newspeakcom.com
spk2wrt@phoenix.edc.org wrote:
>
> To the listserv,
>
> I welcome David's perspective and will let it speak for itself. There is
> one
> item he states in the first paragraph that I would like to clarify. He
says
>
> that an "article" was removed from the spk2wrt website. He is referring
to
> the "Update on continuous speech" which is not actually removed
altogether,
>
> but is itself being updated. It was overlooked in our most recent review
of
>
> the website in Nov., 1999, and will be posted again within a few weeks.
It
> will recognize the advances and new possibilities of the most recent
> continuous speech products, but will continue to caution about the
> developmental and speech processing issues in continuous speech
technology.
>
> As you can see, David takes issue with even this modified position, as do
> several others who are active in implementation of speech recognition for
> school-age children. I welcome this discussion of the relative merits of
> discrete vs. continuous, and I hope that anyone with experience in both
> technologies will weigh in on this discussion. I hope we can all learn
from
>
> the discussion.
>
> Bob Follansbee
> Co-Director, Speaking to Write Project
>
> In a message dated 3/16/00 4:34:18 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> spk2wrt@phoenix.edc.org writes:
>
> > Last month I was forwarded an article comparing continuous speech
> > recognition with discrete speech. In the statement Dr. Bob Follansbee
> > suggests that discrete speech recognition is often better than
> > continuous speech as an assistive technology method for people with
> > learning disabilities. I continue to hear this opinion from a variety
> > of respected sources, and strongly disagree with this argument. The
> > article was recently removed from the spk2wrt website following a
series
> > of communications between myself and Bob. I have written a complete
> > rebuttal to this article, but it is too long for placement on this
> > forum. I believe it is important to discuss the reasons why continuous
> > speech recognition is better at all levels than discrete speech.
>
> ____________________________________________________________
> To post a message to the spk2wrt list, send your message to:
> spk2wrt@mail.edc.org. To reply to a message, simply use the reply button
in
> your email program (do not change the subject line in any way). To
access the
> spk2wrt archive containing a full list of all discussion threads to date,
point
> your Web browser to: http://www.edc.org/spk2wrt/hypermail/. For
questions about
> this list, please send a message to: spk2wrt@edc.org. For more
information
> about the Speaking to Write project, please visit our Web site at:
> http://www.edc.org/spk2wrt
-- ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ Newspeak Communications Speech Recognition Technology dave@newspeakcom.com Speech Therapy http://www.newspeakcom.com (802) 425-4250 ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~____________________________________________________________ To post a message to the spk2wrt list, send your message to: spk2wrt@mail.edc.org. To reply to a message, simply use the reply button in your email program (do not change the subject line in any way). To access the spk2wrt archive containing a full list of all discussion threads to date, point your Web browser to: http://www.edc.org/spk2wrt/hypermail/. For questions about this list, please send a message to: spk2wrt@edc.org. For more information about the Speaking to Write project, please visit our Web site at: http://www.edc.org/spk2wrt
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Mar 23 2000 - 12:25:08 EST