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Voice technology Kyle Cowgill speaks into the microphone, watching his words appear on the computer monitor in front of him.
opens new worlds
for students
Dyslexic kids can
write by speakingBy Crystal Kua
Star-Bulletin"I am in the tech team, period. My name is Kyle Cowgill, period."
Classmate Tim Purifoy, meanwhile, places a document on a computer scanner, then clicks his mouse twice, prompting the computer to read the page back to him.
The two Assets School juniors are trying out software that has mainly been used to assist people who are blind, who have lost the use of their hands or who have other physical disabilities.
Their school is looking at using the technology in a different way -- to help children with learning disabilities learn to read and write.
Assets, with 380 students, serves gifted, dyslexic and gifted-dyslexic students at its campus near Honolulu Airport.
"I think there are exciting possibilities," Headmaster Lou Salza said of the technology. "I don't know anyone else who is messing around with these in quite the same combination that we are."
A three-year, $49,200 grant from the Hawaii Community Foundation makes it possible for Assets to purchase voice-recognition software called "Dragon Naturally Speaking," a "Scan and Read" software program by Kurzweil and new hardware, plus conduct training.
With five new personal computers and other equipment, Assets was able to set up an assistive technology computer lab for high-school students.
With another $155,000 from four other charitable foundations, the school is planning to expand its library, setting up another assistive technology laboratory for grades 5 to 8.
"By the end of the grant, we'll have 15 stations where kids can do this kind of assistive technology work and we have at least that many teachers really up and running on that," Salza said.
The way Assets uses the technology could open up a new world for students eager to learn, but still trying to perfect the skills needed to do the job.
"You can imagine what kind of opportunities this might give to somebody who has struggled all their life to learn handwriting and spelling, who has a real difficulty using vocabulary they possess because they can't write the words," Salza said.
Also, students could get the information they need, while learning to read, he said. "If kids get a sense that there's really interesting stuff for them to read out there that's just beyond their decoding level ... the incentive would be to get better at reading."
Students like Purifoy and Cowgill, who are on Assets' technology team, are learning how to use the software so they can teach other students.
The school also is trying to build lessons around the technology, starting with a high-school class called "Linguistic Structures" -- learning the structures of language in order to learn to read.
"Where high-school kids are still breaking these rocks -- learning how to spell and write -- they can put their chemistry book on (the computer), put their physics book on there and put their social studies book on there so that they can garner information," Salza said.
"I think it does make a lot of sense not just in schools like this, but, I think, it does makes sense in general education environments as well," he said.
Barbara Fischlowitz-Leong, executive director of the federally-funded Assistive Technology Resource Center of Hawaii, said Assets is going beyond what other schools are doing in this area.
"It's cutting edge," she said. "It's their mission."
It's also part of a trend in assistive technology that is moving toward universal accessibility -- allowing more people to access what previously was directed at just meeting the needs of one group of people, Fischlowitz-Leong said.
Universal accessibility can also be an equalizer in any classroom, she said: "You're leveling the playing field, you're giving everybody a chance so that no one looks stupid."
Salza said the technology also will even the field for students with disabilities who want to keep up with others in their class.
"Let's say you have a child in the fourth grade who's already two years behind in reading and they're interested in history," Salza said.
"It would be a real burst of freedom for a kid who has reading difficulties to be able to get information and new vocabulary that they would not get in any other way."
Assets teacher Megan McCall will help students use the technology as a study skills aid.
"If they can get through the material easier, then pretty soon they'll be able to recognize more instantly the word and the sound that comes out (of the computer)," she said.
Assets School profile
Type: Private, coeducational school serving gifted and/or dyslexic children
Source: Assets School Web site