If she's truly capable of producing the assignment orally, dictation software might be a good option. But the skills needed to succeed in a one-on-one discussion (where the other person provides a fair amount of organizational scaffolding) are not at all the same as the skills needed to produce a long written work (where you have to do all the organizing yourself, and organizational flaws can't be disguised by the organic flow of discussion). You have to have your whole topic in your head for both, but the purpose of a writing assignment is not just to demonstrate that you have the whole topic in your head.
I'm not saying it's an unrealistic thing to ask; just that it may fail to both accommodate your DD's weaknesses and satisfy the teachers that she's demonstrated the equivalent skills.
We have the Dragon II software, I think we just need an extremely patient coach to help her get it working...She tried a few times and got very frustrated because it just wouldn't understand her and she is not speech impaired at all.
The purpose and structure of the essays at this college is quite unique in that they are intended purely for the benefit of the student and they involve demonstrating critical thinking by asking and exploring questions about the text, not answering them or bringing together research etc so maybe it would be okay? I am open to any suggestions on how to accommodate her weakness; ultimately that’s what we need to do.
Has she tried the intermediate thing of writing her papers *by* first talking into a dictation machine, and then playing back (repeatedly, in sections) what she said as part of the process of turning it into written work? Different level, but this helped my DS when he was struggling with producing written explanations in maths - that doesn't have the same organisation issues, but still, it might be worth trying in case it might break the block, as it were.
I forgot about that but I did buy her a small portable recorder before she left for college so she could capture her thoughts on the fly before forgetting them and then write them down; she had said that was helpful.
I am guessing that when the meds quit working, everything else seemed to be too much effort and she fell back on the old strategy of just hoping she would wake up with the whole essay in her head and be able to write it out in one sitting before the deadline. That strategy has let her down but the few times it worked may have her thinking that's how it should be. Just my guess. She doesn’t seem convinced by the connection between her stopping the meds and it all sliding downhill even though that is when she quit talking in class and stopped producing written work on time. She argues that she was able to produce two essays at the 11th hour of fall semester without meds and then when she tried the meds again after a long break she was still not able to produce written work. I am not a med pusher, in fact I was against it at first but I certainly saw a big difference during the 3 months that they were working. God I hope I can get her in to see a good therapist soon she is on several waiting lists 7 months long.
