Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Dragon Naturally Speaking (sale)

I so hope this isn't a problem, but if it is, just delete the post (mods).

I am signed up for Groupon. I saw this deal for Dragon Naturally Speaking come up today. It's listed for Nashville (anyone can view any city's 'deals'). I've heard many of you mention using it with your children, so I thought others might be interested. The deal has a lower price than any on Amazon, so it might be a good time to try it. I'll copy and paste the brief info below.

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Groupon's DNS Deal

The Deal

$29 for Dragon NaturallySpeaking Home Edition, Version 11/11.5 ($99.99 list price)
$69 for Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium Edition, Version 11/11.5 ($199.99 list price)

Both editions include a headset.
This software is only compatible with Windows operating systems.

An additional $5 shipping fee will be charged at checkout.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking Home Edition, Version 11/11.5

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*I'm not (knowingly) getting any kind of points or discount if people use the link above.

Thank you for this! Anyone who has it - do you like it? Thinking of getting it for my DS6 ... Husband says "no" b/c he thinks DS should learn to type first. DS has hypotonia and struggles with fine motor skills. He is exceedingly creative - writing stories and books that I have to type! Why my DH thinks it's okay for us to sit typing DS' stories and books for him but it's not okay to get this because he wants DS to learn to type is beyond me! LOL

I am also curious. When we were discussing assistive technology with the school district we were told this is not really something a younger child can use. It would difficult to get it to respond to DD7's speech and could not be used with ANY ambient noise.

Anyone use this successfully with an early elementary age child? For this price I am almost tempted to try it but want to know if it really has a chance of working.

Thanks!

This is exactly my concern!

I have two uncles who swear by it, one is a heart surgeon and he uses it to dictate emails, billing stuff, memos etc he LOVES it! The other uncle is a quadriplegic who has limited motion in his hands, he also thinks its great.

I bought it for my DD then 17 to try to help with her writing issues (great verbal ideas but serious difficulty with producing written work in a timely manner, we still don't know why - possible disorder of written expression, dysgraphia, anxiety,PDD-NOS or a combo).

She got so frustrated trying to teach it to understand her that she gave up (she also have slight articulation difficulties that are barely noticeable but may have impacted it) also, she is a perfectionist and stopped to correct every word that was wrong immediately. I have since read others advice to turn the computer away and read the whole thing, then go back and correct the mistakes, this makes a lot of sense but my DD isn't interested in trying it again. Maybe we'll bring it up again after she finished her neurofeedback therapy, that might help her with the patience required to set it up.

That's a great price, I paid 199.00 :-(

Is there another version that also works on Mac?

Isn't there a Mac native equivalent that works as well?

Macs have a built-in software that does transcription, but I don't know how good it is. The Dragon software for Macs is called Dragon Dictate, apparently. Yay google.

If I try this - any input on whether to try the Home Edition or the Premium Edition? Is one better with the ambient noise or for use with a young child?

From what I'm reading online it sounds like Premium is the way to go... But I've not used either product personally. Here's a site that lists some differences - http://www.voicerecognition.com.au/introduction-to-dragon/dragon-difference-versus.htm

My understanding was that Dragon wasn't updating the Mac version as frequently, so it is less elegant and usable than the Windows version.

The new Mac OS (being released this summer) claims to have integrated dictation software for all apps. Might be worth looking into that instead if you are a Mac user.

DeeDee

We have Dragon Dictate for the Mac. Our ds12 prefers this over typing, but I don't think it would have worked for him at 6.

FWIW, ds has also played around with Dragon on our iPhone (it's a free app) and the voice recognition seems to be much easier to use there (no training required for the software to understand your voice). We've been told that the reason is that the Dragon iPhone app is operating off of an online voice recognition database that's trained to 1000s of voices so it can catch most words easily, as opposed to having to train to recognize your individual voice as you have to do on the computer version. The phone version isn't a complete substitute for an older student's needs, but for a 6 year old it will most likely work great! You can have him talk into the phone, then email what he's said to wherever and cut and paste it into a text doc. You can probably save it as text to - I haven't used it lately and I'm not at home where I have my AT notes

Another thing you can do if you have a Mac (for a young child) is to record in Garage Band and just leave it as a voice track.

Gotta run, hope that helps some!

polarbear

ps - Pemberley, I don't think that the Premium version is significantly different re operating with background noise. I do think the headset used might make a difference? We were also told (fwiw, it's been a few years since we were looking at all this the first time) that there was no need to purchase the premium edition for a student.

Thanks polarbear. We loaded the Dragon app onto our iPhones this morning and DD is really having fun with it. She is especially enjoying saying her punctuation. (i.e. "OUCH - exclamation point") I think we may just try the premium. We bought her a computer in December so she could start learning some keyboarding but she gets frustrated and says it makes her hands hurt too. I really think this may just be the way to go.

Thanks for the thread and all the info!

I have not found the ipad app to be accurate enough to be useful. It's fun to play with, but not something we'll likely be able to put to use.