Text to Speech
From LiteracyTentWiki
Below is a discussion held on the NIFL-LD electronic list in May, 2005 about the use of text-to-speech with adult learners.
From: DJRosen@theworld.com
Subject: [NIFL-LD:4745] Should instruction, and high-stakes assessments offer text to speech software?
Date: May 1, 2005 1:21:31 PM EDT
To: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov
NIFL-LD, NIFL-Technology, NIFL-Assessment and AAACE-NLA Colleagues,
Today's Boston Globe's Education section
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2005/05/01/hear_words_see_a_difference/
has an article about how Massachusetts high school students with reading disabilities use text (or print)-to-speech text-to-speech software to help them improve their reading and writing skills, and to take high-stakes and other standardized tests. Massachusetts is not the only state that allows this practice.
"Teachers liken the effect to runners who train with faster athletes to get used to a quicker pace. Students who used to get bogged down in chapter one can now read books cover to cover. It's because they can focus less on what the words are and more on what they mean."
"A growing body of research indicates these reading programs help students make significant strides, and under special education law, schools are required to consider buying reading programs that might help students with disabilities."
I have several questions for you:
1. What is the "growing body of research" on this? Can anyone give us citations? (Are any on-line?)
2. Do your students with reading disabilities (or reading difficulties) use text-to-speech? What do you think of this practice?
3. Are adult education programs in your state required by law to consider buying reading programs like this for students with reading disabilities? If not, should they be?
4. Should adult literacy education standardized tests (TABE, CASAS, BEST, BEST PLUS and others) be required to have this option? Should states be required to make it available?
5. Should reading be re-defined to include the use of text-to-speech, just as increasingly mathematics now includes/allows the use of a pocket calculator? If so, what are the implications for the field of adult basic literacy?
I expect there will be a lot of response to these questions, especially the last one. I have posted this on four e-lists because I think it raises issues of concern to readers on all these e-lists (and maybe others). To avoid confusion, and to give everyone a chance to see the entire discussion, I propose that we have this discussion on one list, NIFL-LD. If you are not subscribed to this e-list, you can easily and quickly subscribe by going to http://www.nifl.gov/lincs/discussions/nifl-ld/learning_disabilities.html
David J. Rosen
djrosen@comcast.net
From: jkomisor@projecteaston.org
Subject: [NIFL-LD:4747] RE: Should instruction, and high-stakes assessments offer text to speech software?
Date: May 2, 2005 9:58:19 AM EDT
To: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov
The Annals of Dyslexia has published studies on efficacy - some of them
can be found at the Kurzweil link below or through the International
Dyslexia Association. Although there are many text to speech systems I
believe the Kurzweil system is the oldest and best. It goes way beyond
text to speech - providing auditory and visual feedback and a suite of
study skills tools.
http://www.kurzweiledu.com/proof_research.asp
Janice Komisor
Director of Language and Literacy
ProJeCt of Easton, Inc.
Easton, PA 18042
From: Steve.Noble@ky.gov
Subject: [NIFL-LD:4748] RE: Should instruction, and high-stakes assessments offer text to speech software?
Date: May 2, 2005 10:32:46 AM EDT
To: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov
A "bibliography" of sorts is available at the following website: http://kamc.louisville.edu/kyecontent/Documents.htm (Scroll down to the list of articles and other studies.)
The state of Kentucky has had a statewide Universal Design for Learning (UDL) project in place now for a number of years. We now have about 95% of all K-12 schools in the state using text-to-speech software. The state negotiated a special agreement with TextHelp to obtain school site license for TextHelp "Read and Write" software at a much reduced rate. This software includes not only software for reading, but also writing, web surfing, etc. It is also used for the state assessment, as long as it is written into the student's IEP or Section 504 plan for a reading accommodation.
If you would like more background on the Kentucky UDL project, there is an article on the NASDSE website detailing the work of Kentucky, New York, California and Ohio in implementing UDL principles. This article is a bit dated now, but gives some good background. It is at http://www.nasdse.org/publications/udl.pdf
Best regards,
Steve Noble
Policy Analyst
Kentucky Assistive Technology Service Network
8412 Westport Road
Louisville, KY 40242
Voice: (502) 429-4484 x268
Toll-Free: (800) 327-5287
Fax: (502) 429-7114
Steve.Noble@ky.gov
Board of Directors, Learning Disabilities Association of America (National Board)
Board of Directors, Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (KY Unit)
Vice-President, Learning Disabilities Association of Kentucky
Editor-in-Chief, Information Technology and Disabilities
From: mcsmith@niu.edu
Subject: [AAACE-NLA] text-to-speech research
Date: May 2, 2005 12:51:28 PM EDT
To: aaace-nla@lists.literacytent.org
Just for fun, and while killing time waiting to go to the gym, I did a quick search of the PsycInfo database, from 2001-2005, using the following search terms in various combinations:
text-to-speech
computer software
reading disability
synthetic speech
I found no citations, suggesting that there is no peer-reviewed research in the psychological literature. Not a comprehensive search by any means, but I'm pretty good at uncovering studies using these quick-and-dirty methods, and I found no evidence that such research exists.
Sounds like a scam to sell software that is "Proven by research!"
Cecil Smith
M Cecil Smith, Ph.D.
Professor of Educational Psychology
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb, IL 60115-2854
(815) 753-8448
(815) 753-8750 (FAX)
mcsmith@niu.edu
www.cedu.niu.edu/~smith
From: lchenven@aol.com
Subject: [NIFL-LD:4751] RE: Fwd: [AAACE-NLA] text-to-speech research
Date: May 2, 2005 4:34:32 PM EDT
To: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov
Just on the level of a personal experience, my daughter benefitted tremendously from using Kurzweill 3000 - She started using it in her senior year of high school instead of the books on tape she had been using occasionally. She wished she had used it all the way through high school. These are the results as she reported them. These are subjective responses but not unimportant. - It cut the amount of time she had to spend on homework since previously she was reading all documents twice - once for decoding, second for meaning (page by page) - It improved her reading speed - hearing and reading at the same time was faster than reading by herself - It improved her reading even when she was not using the program - the increase in the amount of reading she was doing and the relative comfort she developed using the program made her feel better about reading without the program and she also felt it helped her reading fluency.
If there hasn't been much study of the use of this program, there ought to be. I would heartily recommend it - not necessarily for the purpose of learning to read - but certainly as a very valuable accommodation for dyslexic readers.
Laura Chenven
From: SUJones@parkland.edu
Subject: [NIFL-LD:4755] RE: Should instruction, and high-stakes assessment...
Date: May 2, 2005 6:34:48 PM EDT
To: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov
Students with the right documentaiton here can take the college assessment test with accommodations, and (at least hypothetically) get materials read to them, so for these people, reading has been "redefined" as including hearing it. I'm not sure it's really being redefined, since the students are getting meaning from written text.
Unfortunately, articles like this lead many people to the conclusion that, say, if I have TextHelp! in my computer lab here at the college, that a whole lot more students will be a whole lot more successful. Anybody who's been down the road knows otherwise. The infrastructure has to be there to support the software. WHen a whole system has made an investment into the software, they've also made an investment in that infrastructure * or, at least, I pause to consider cynically, enough investment to have somebody for a press release. Could even be that that student brought motivation and language skills to the picture that many students don't have, and that despite the description, many students are laboriously proceeding through a process that has little or no meaning to them (except the part about "you have to do this 'cause it's school, don't expect it to make sense, that's for smart people" * one of my least favorite meanings).
Most of the students who try TextHelp! here are disappointed in the quality of the reading; it's not somebody reading the text aloud. They would have to (as they would with text) interpret the words and if they're strong auditory learners maybe even have to "translate" the words into another more prosodic voice. For the software to help them, they would need to learn to do this.
Then there's that other elusive factor * the perception of the learning as something just a little bit independent of The Assignment... the idea that you learn about something (listen to the book, digest it, think about it) and then use that knowledge to complete the assignment. Most of the folks I see honestly want the most efficient way to Complete The Assignment, and * even if the thing's already scanned in for them, which wouldn't always be possible * hearing the text isn't the most efficient way to do it.
I don't know that the law would require consideration of purchase of any specific product; the laws (as should our thoughts and plans) are geared more towards meeting the student needs with reasonable accommodations. I do know that we've got lots of text-to-speech options... and have for some time, as it's been a need for some time. It's expanding the "need" definition to include those who can see that's the change.
Susan Jones
Academic Development Specialist
Academic Development Center
Parkland College
Champaign, IL 61821
sujones@parkland.edu
Webmastress,
http://www.resourceroom.net
From:shellcraig@ix.netcom.com
To:nifl-ld@nifl.gov
Subject: [NIFL-LD:4756] Intonation and Interpretation of Computer read text
Date: May 2, 2005, 9:13 PM
Susan,
I was so glad to see your post about the drawbacks of the technology for people if they don't have the infrastructure to support the technology. Also the thing you said about students having to reinterpret the text into more tonal reading really struck home with me. It is the difference between the books on tape that you get from the library and the books on tape that you get from the Library of Congress. My son is dyslexic, and he recently qualified to receive talking books, but he hates them for a few reasons -- the main one being that because the tapes are made so that you can speed them up to listen to the book faster, the readers are instructed not to put lots of expression into the reading since this would mess up the words when you speed up the tape. They also do things like read all the beginning of the book -- title pages, table of contents, the whole works!
Listening to one of these almost atonal books is not at all the experience of having someone read to you or hearing a professional actor read. I think that it would take a lot of training to learn to use these books in how you listen. Just as you read for different purposes -- I guess you listen for different purposes too.
Michele
From: Nina Ghiselli, PsyD mailto:drghiselli@yahoo.com
Subject: [AAACE-NLA] text-to-speech research
Just to add to text to speech discussion.
I am a user of WYNN and am also familiar of other screen readers for people who are Blind or LD. I have greatly benefit from WYNN. College students with LD now have additional options for reading. Since disability providers are now able to get text books on disk or from Bookshare.org, students are better able to access their materials in interact with it in more effective ways.
Additionally, as more educational opportunities open up on the web, this is an additional area of challenge for students with LD. Luckily websites are being made to be compatible with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, so even this is more easily accessible.
Nina Ghiselli, Psy.D., Psy19027
Counseling and Consultation Services
1014 B Street
Hayward, California 94541
