The aim of this study was to investigate composition and error-correction processes, and their relationship with production rate, in children, age 10-12, with and without reading and writing difficulties using speech-to-text (STT) to write expository texts in Swedish. Measures of individual abilities: working memory, spelling ability and decoding ability, and the ability to interact with the STT tool under optimal conditions (STT success rate) were collected.

For both those with and without difficulties, neither working memory, nor spelling or decoding ability predicted burst length nor accuracy. Only a child’s STT success rate did predict accuracy during text composition. Further, none of the individual abilities predicted choice of error-correction modality (keyboard or STT) or error correction functionality. This indicates that the children’s behavior were independent of these abilities.

Furthermore, production rate was significantly predicted by both burst length and accuracy, and by working memory, but not by error-correction behaviour, nor by spelling or decoding ability. This indicates that composing text using STT is a cognitively complex process placing heavy demands on working memory. Dictating more than one word at a time and combining STT and keyboard use were identified as two useful strategies that can be taught in STT instruction.

The ability to perform revisions targeting the content of the text is important for text quality improvement, and it is hypothesized that lower-level transcription processes need to be automatized in order to free up capacity for higher- level processes such as revision. However, for people with reading and writing difficulties due to underlying difficulties with decoding and spelling, the transcription process is rarely automatized because of their troubles with spelling. One possible way to circumvent spelling difficulties, and possibly gaining capacity for higher level processes such as revision, is to write using speech-to-text (STT). This study investigates the revisions performed when children with reading and writing difficulties (n = 16), and a reference group without such difficulties (n = 12), compose text using STT and using a keyboard. More specifically, the study investigates whether, and if so how, revisions at various levels, errors left in the final text product, and text quality differ between conditions and between groups. The compositions were logged using keystroke logging (keyboard) and audio- and screen-recording (STT). The level of revisions were manually coded. The results showed that children with reading and writing difficulties gain more from composing with STT compared to keyboard than the reference group. They leave fewer errors in their final text product when composing by means of STT, even though they need to engage more in the correction of surface errors because of the large number of STT errors. Despite the numerous STT errors, neither the proportion of meaning-related revisions nor text quality decreased in composing with STT (for either of the groups). Taken together, the results suggest, albeit not emphatically, that STT may be appropriate as a facilitatory tool for children with reading and writing difficulties. However, more research is needed to investigate instruction that addresses strategies for STT transcription and highlights the shortcomings of the tool in the target language, and also focuses specifically on higher-level aspects of composition such as planning or revising, in order to gain further knowledge about the feasibility of using STT as a means of composition for children who struggle with writing, and its possible effects over time. 

För barn med stavningssvårigheter är skriftspråkande en stor utmaning och behovet att hitta nya redskap för att understödja deras skriftspråksutveckling är därför stort.

Att skriva med taligenkänning, diktering, skulle kunna underlätta skrivprocessen eftersom dikteringsverktyget reducerar kraven på skribenten att stava själv, och detta skulle därmed kunna frigöra kognitiva resurser till annan textbearbetning. Att diktera text innebär emellertid inte med nödvändighet en enklare textproduktion; dels behöver texten följa skriftspråksnormer trots att den produceras muntligt, dels behöver skribenten hitta strategier för att hantera tillfällen när verktyget inte uppfattar talet korrekt.

I föreliggande studie undersöks text producerad av barn med stavningssvårigheter. Lexikala egenskaper, textlängd och stavfel studeras i muntlig, skriven och dikterad text. Analyserna visar att de dikterade texterna innehåller färre stavfel än de skrivna samt att både skriven och dikterad text har högre lexikal densitet och högre andel långa ord jämfört med muntlig text. Detta antyder att deltagarna klarar att diktera texter med skriftspråkliga egenskaper. Däremot skiljde sig dikterad text varken från muntlig eller skriven text gällande textlängd eller lexikal diversitet.

Vår slutsats är att dikteringsverktyg kan användas för att underlätta skrivprocessen för barn med stavningssvårigheter, men det behövs vidare forskning som studerar hur olika undergrupper producerar text med dikteringsverktyg.

For children with reading and writing difficulties, writing, in general, and spelling, in particular, is a significant challenge. Writing with speech recognition (dictation) can facilitate the writing process since the dictation tool removes the need to spell, freeing resources for other processes. Dictating, however, may not always provide a solution, since written text should follow the conventions of written language, even when produced orally. In addition, writers need strategies if the tool does not recognize the spoken words.

In the present study, children with spelling difficulties produced keyboard-written and dictated texts, and an oral account. The analyses showed that dictated texts, as expected, contained fewer spelling errors than keyboard-written texts, and that both of these had a higher lexical density than the oral accounts. This suggests that students are able to dictate using written language conventions. However, the dictated texts did not differ from the oral and keyboard-written texts in terms of length of text and proportion of long words. Our conclusion is that the dictation tool can be used to facilitate the children’s writing process, but further research is needed to see if training in the use of the tool would bring more substantial benefits.