*Update* Software for Children with Writting Difficulties!

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I got a call from my husbands aunt yesterday, she is a special ed co ordinator for a school board in my province.

My son has a lot of difficulty with writting, getting thoughts onto paper. His spelling is bad, he tries to write as little as possible, he skips words, making sentences choppy and hard to read.

It has been recommended that he use a computer, but his keyboarding is not up to par yet, so it seems to take him even longer then just writing it out! However, we know that this will improve with time, and in the interm, at least he can go back and edit things more easily.

Anyway, there are two programs, they can work independantly or together. Right now they don 't run on Vista, but their should be updates that do by the end of the month.

One is called "wordQ" It is a word prediction program. As the child types in a program like word or notepad, there is a box that runs alongside the typing, predicting what word the child may want to write next. As you type along, it modifies the word choices. When the child sees the word they want to use, all they have to do is hit the corresponding number to go with the choice, and the computer writes out the word.

The other program is called SpeakQ. it is a voice recognition program, very simple and effective, easy to use. it can be combined with the WordQ to give the benifit of both programs to the child.

These programs don't "do" t he work for the child. however they will take a lot of the stress off of them and make the task of writting on a computer easier.

Best of all, there is a free to do thirty day trial for the programs! What could be better then that?
To get a copy, just go to www.wordq.com and you can download them, or request a CD and they will send you a trial program in the mail!

I hope this helps at least a few little frustrated Aspie Children out there! It is great for the LD set too. If you like the programs, try showing your schools, they may be able to purchase the software to be used in class, best of all, the company at least in my husbands Aunts school board sends a spare copy for the kids to use at home at no charge, so you may end up not paying anything for the program!

Oh my goodness! I just had my son working with the WordQ program and he was captivated by it, his father could not drag him away to get cleaned up! I can only imagine combined with a spell / grammer checker, and speech recognition, he is going to be unstopable!

Here is a sample of what he was working on. He was having it read back to him in a robot voice by the program: It is a one sided conversation.

Thanks EarthCalling, I'm going to have to check these out. These will not only help Z bit I can see definate benefits for S as well.

This sounds like a cool software, I ordered the trial 30 day one and I want my son to try it.

Glad you are checking it out!

We just got our new computer today, so next week we are going to try the speech recognition program! It is amazing seeing my son relax and have fun with the word prediction program, it is helping so much!

Hockeymom, if you are looking for a speech recognition program, this is a good one to try as it is very easy to use, however with your sons age you may want to try a program called "dragon". It is the best of the best, (although expensive, and I don't think it has a free trial) It can also be a little challenging to use. My husbands aunt says their school board tries to switch kids to dragon in gr. 7 or 8, but it can make them pull their hair out learning it!

Update!!
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Hi,

I just recieved the software from my husbands aunt today!

It looks really promising!

There are several programs she sent, some that I talked about before, but I'll just give a brief discription of all again!

1.) WordQ and Speak Q. By Quilsoft. www.wordq.com
These programs are word prediction and speech recognition. It works with existing programs like word, notpad, even the search bar on google!
I am really impressed with it after my son playing with it up at his grandmas for two days.

2.) Inspiration (Ages 10-adult) and kidspiration (Ages 4-10) www.inspiration.com
These are the mapping /organizing programs that I was talking about before! They look really good too. My aunt says that all their LD kids use these to not only map out ideas for assignments, but organize their days, and teachers chunk assignments using it!

3.) Clicker 5 (Younger ages, up to grade 6) http://www.cricksoft.com/us/products/clicker/

This is a program to help children write sentences, using words, or even pictures. Used in over 90% of schools in the US. It looks really good, especially for the younger child, or the older child to build simple reports etc.

I hope this is helpful, I am really really excited! These programs are expensive, however you should be able to get the school to provide them to your child, and many schools will give copies of the program for at home.

Thanks EarthCalling.

I've been a bit slow to read this topic - been too occupied with getting ready for Daniel's IEP meeeting which we had today (and it went well - will have to do an update when I've got time).

Anyway he will stay at home on Wednesdays to do school work and go to Tony Attwood's clinic.

The school work we decided on was to try to improve his computer/keyboarding skills.

I'll definantly check these out too.

When your 3 kids are a bit older, you should write a book. You are so knowledgable! I'm sure you could teach Tony Attwood a thing or too.

From the President of Your Fan Club!
Smelena

This is what I do, I become obsessed with being "helpful". In my early twenties, it was teen pregnancy and young mother hood, in my mid 20's, I became obsessed with an insuance company that was going to "help" people with their various financial "crisis" (fell hard for that one). In my later 20's, I rolled it all onto one refugee family, effectively becomming their unofficial (and unpaid) personal support worker! (Finally, when they moved 100km away, I had to cut it off, I could not be carting those kids all over hells half acre! Last year I was obsessed about guinea pigs, there rescue, and their care. (not animals, not rodents, just pigs!) This year, I am obsessing about my AS!

Maybe I'll write a book, but I gotta lot to learn from here in still! I would like to write a book specifically about girls and AS, how their symptoms vary, and specific problems they may face, like anorexia and coreced rape...

Honestly though, you gotta try the software! Inspirations, wordq, speakq all have free 30 day trials. A program called Kurzweil can actually scan material and read for your child with simplistic operation. With keyboarding, I just have to warn you, if your son does not "take" to one program, try another. I tried 3 before I found one that "worked" with my son. Others where not interesting to him, or he says they "mocked him". Mavis Beacon was his final preferance.

Take care!

Keep up this obsession! It's very helpful.

Smelena