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Bob Dewhirst asked:
>We have a student with severe dyslexia and would like to have his course
books put onto tape. Does anyone know who will do this and how much they
charge? Thanks.<
I have been enquiring about the possibilities of scanning
and text reading software. A former teacher at RNIB FE College
in Redhill said that when she asked publishers for permission
to scan books for RNIB students, she was never refused,
and some publishers sent the text on computer disk!
She sent a letter of explanation of what she wanted
and her reasons, with a tear-off reply slip at the bottom
to make it easy for publishers.
I have also been asking whether the 'voice' of text
reading software can be recorded on audio cassette tape.
The result would not be posh pronunciation with expression
(and there would be a problem with abbreviations etc.)
but a dyslexic student should be able to follow the text
in the book while listening to the imperfect tape.
This might help dyslexic people
who have cassette players but not computers.
Re abbreviations and signs - I tried some BDA info leaflets
in an old version of TextHELP.
Oh dear, asterisks were correctly read as 'times',
<> round file names were correctly read as 'less than, more than',
and hilariously, a decorative row of ===========================
was read, correctly as 'equals equals equals equals equals equals'
so I would welcome some guidelines about how to write for
text-reading software to read, please!
Jean Hutchins
British Dyslexia Association Computer Committee
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