Peer-reviewed research
Dictation and Speech Recognition Technology as Test Accommodations
Charles A. MacArthur and Albert R. Cavalier, Exceptional Children, 2004
Read the originalRead on October 16, 2026
- What it is
- A study of high school students with and without learning disabilities who wrote essays by hand, by dictating to speech recognition software and by dictating to a human scribe, testing whether dictation is a valid accommodation for extended-writing tests.
- How much weight it carries
- Peer-reviewed in a leading special education journal and indexed in ERIC. Small sample of high school students and 2004-era recognition software, so accuracy figures are dated while the comparison between methods still holds.
Facts taken from this source
- For high school students with learning disabilities, essays dictated to speech recognition were better than handwritten ones, and essays dictated to a human scribe were better still; students without learning disabilities showed no difference.
“for students with LD, essays dictated using speech recognition were better than handwritten essays, and essays dictated to a scribe were even better. No differences in quality were found for students without LD.” (Abstract)
- High school students with and without learning disabilities learned to use speech recognition with total word errors under 10 percent.
“Total word errors with speech recognition were under 10%, and there were few unreadable words.” (Abstract)
Pages that rest on this source
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- Speech to Text for Dyslexia and DysgraphiaGuide
- Dictation for ADHD: Get Your Thoughts Onto the PageGuide
- Speech to Text for Students With DisabilitiesGuide
- Does dictation help students write better?Question
- What is the best dictation app for kids?Question
- Section 504 planGlossary
- What is a good word error rate?Question