%0 Journal Article
%T Speech-to-text intervention to support text production among students with writing difficulties: a single-case study in nordic countries.
%A Almgren Bäck G
%A Mossige M
%A Bundgaard Svendsen H
%A Rønneberg V
%A Selenius H
%A Berg Gøttsche N
%A Dolmer G
%A Fälth L
%A Nilsson S
%A Svensson I
%J Disabil Rehabil Assist Technol
%V 0
%N 0
%D 2024 May 22
%M 38776244
%F 1.834
%R 10.1080/17483107.2024.2351488
%X Studies report that speech-to-text applications (STT) may support students with writing difficulties in text production. However, existing research is sparse, shows mixed results, and lacks information on STT interventions and their applicability in schools. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate whether a systematic and intensive assistive technology intervention focusing on STT can improve text production. A modified multiple-baseline across-subject design was used involving eight middle school students, four Norwegian and four Swedish. Their STT-produced narrative texts were collected during and after the intervention and the productivity, accuracy, and text quality were analysed. Keyboarding was the baseline control condition. The results demonstrated that seven of the eight students increased text productivity and that the proportion of word-level accuracy was maintained or improved. The use of punctuation progressed in participants with poor baseline skills. Most students' STT-produced texts had at least a similar ratio of meaningfulness and text quality as keyboarding. However, the magnitude of the changes and development patterns varied, with three students showing the most notable impacts. In conclusion, this study's intervention seemed beneficial in initially instructing STT, and the progress monitoring guided individually adapted future interventions such as balancing productivity and formal language aspects. Removing the spelling barrier with STT provided an opportunity for students to improve their higher-order skills, such as vocabulary diversity and overall text quality. Furthermore, visible progress, such as the ability to produce longer texts, might motivate continued STT usage. However, such development may not always be immediate.<BR>Speech-to-text (STT) may be an effective tool for developing text production in students with severe reading and writing difficulties. For example, enhanced text length can provide teachers with more material for feedback, guiding students towards improved text production.Text-to-speech may further enhance the usefulness of STT in text production by facilitating the revision process through listening to produced sentences and texts.By continuously monitoring students’ STT usage and text production, teachers can tailor the content for further interventions to address individual needs such as sentence construction and text planning.Early STT intervention seems beneficial, allowing more time to practise advanced skills in text production when bypassing spelling.