@device(postscript)

Status Report for the Pilot Project on the Use of the Kurzweill
Reading Machine with Dislexic Readers.

@b(Overview)

The goal of the project is to determine the effectiveness of using the
Kurzweill Reading Machine for subjects who are sighted but dislexic.

@b(The Subjects)

The subjects three students enrolled in a Boston area private school.  
The youngest is a boy, age 8.  The other two are girls, ages 9 and 12.
All have been evaluated as having some reading disability (dislexia) 
and work with the school reading and resource teacher.

@b(Design considerations for the training program)

The goal of the training was to enable the subjects to use the
Kurzweill Reading Machine and the automatic scanner independently,
(that is, without supervision) for their day-to-day reading tasks.

The major considerations that had to be addressed in the design of the 
training program (in contrast to the existing training program intended 
for visually impared adults) were that the subjects were sighted and young.  

@b(The training program)

The Kurzweill Reading Machine was brought to the school, set up in the
library, and demonstrated to the students and staff during the first 
full week in February (February 6-10).  

The second week (February 13-17), the students came down to the
library at the beginning of each school day for five training sessions
that lasted 30-40 minutes each.  During those sessions, the students
took turns operating the Kurzweill Reading Machine and the automatic
scanner under the instructor's supervision.

The topics that the students mastered were: turning the power on;
selecting the appropriate input device; using the automatic scanner
with single sheets of paper and with books, scanning in multiple pages
at one time; cancelling and rescanning pages; recovering from
encounters with programming bugs by shutting the power off and turning
it back on; using the stop/continue, nominator, erase text, last
section, last line, last word, next section, next line, and next word
keys; recovering from garbled words and lines by following along on
the printed page and reading the garbled material themselves.

Optional topics covered at the students' request included changing the
reading voice and speed.

Topics not covered included use of the hand scanner and, with the
exception of the reading voice and reading speed keys, the other keys
and menues.

The third week (February 20-24) was a school vacation and the
oldest student took the Kurzweill Reading Machine and the automatic
scanner home to use with an assigned book, a full length novel.

The fourth week (February 26 - March 3), the students used Kurzweill
Reading Machine without supervision for 20-40 minutes a day.

@b(Results of First Reading Tests)

On March 3, the students were tested by Joan Axelrod using the Gray
Oral Reading Test, Form A.  Each student was tested for their reading
comprehension skills first without the use of the Kurzweill Reading
Machine, and then with it.  The following table summarizes the
results.  (Note: the comprehension scores were standardized by age:
mean=10 std=3)

@begin(verbatim)
           COMPREHENSION   READING LEVEL   READING AGE
 age       without  with   without  with  without  with
--------   -------  ----   -------  ----  -------  ----
 8 years      6      14      1.5     6       7      12
 9 years      9      13      3.5     6       8.5    12
12 years      9      11      6.5     7.5    12      13
@end(verbatim)

This represents an average increase of more than a standard deviation
in comprehension, 2.67 grades in Level, and 3 years in reading age.

The subjects will be retested in two months with Form B of the same
test.

@b(Initial Interview)

We met with each child in the library of the school.  After the child
demonstrated the machine and read a page from a book, we talked with
the children.  The youngest does not care greatly for reading or books
in general, although he was quite enthusiastic about the machine.  The
others are enthusiastic readers and and enjoy books a great deal.
Both, however, mentioned their frustrations about reading at different
times during the the discussions for the fact that reading on their
own is difficult for them and often frustrating or tiring.

All three children were familiar with computers and had systems in
their homes which they used for homework or games, and all were
accustomed to seeing their parents use computers.  

All three agreed that they felt happy, excited, and interested while
they were learning to use the machine, that it had been somewhat
difficult at first, but easier as they learned more.  All three felt
they would have no problem teaching someone else how to use the
system.  The oldest had already demonstrated the system to numerous
adults at home, and had taught her younger sister how to use it.

All three felt the machine was easy to use, and getting easier,
although one complained again that holding the book still for the
scanner was difficult.  One felt it might be too difficult for
anyone much younger than our three, while another found
frustrating her inability to explain why (as opposed to how) the
machine actually works as it does.

@b(Using the machine)

All three agreed that reading a book with the machine was easier and
more fun for them, and improves concentration and comprehension.  The
youngest child stated simply that he was able to read books with the
machine that he otherwise could not read alone.  The next oldest said
that it "made it easier to read" and repeated her statement that the
machine was simple to use.  The eldest of the three, who repeated
often that she loves to read, had several comments on the best
qualities of the Reader.  She said she enjoyed using the machine very
much because it made reading much easier and faster for her.  She
stated that she found books easier to comprehend, that she understood
books better using the machine, and followed both action and plot more
accurately and with greater facility.

All three agreed that they prefer reading with the Reader than
simply reading a book alone.  However, they generally preferred
having someone read to them to reading with the machine largely 
because human voices are more pleasant and more expressive of 
meaning.  The 9-year-old also said that a person can also help 
you with words you didn't know.  The oldest, however, stated that 
the machine was better than a human in one important respect: it
would read as long as she wanted and never tired, unlike an
average parent or sibling.

We asked all three what kinds of things they feel they have been
able to do using the Reader that they were unable to do without
it.  The youngest found that he got more out of a book.  He
scanned book he needed for a report and then had the machine read 
it back to him one paragraph at a time, so that he could highlight 
important facts as he went.  The other two stated that they were 
able to read harder books with better comprehension.  The oldest 
one felt that she had an advantage over her classmates because the 
machine pronounced similar names distinctly and so helped her keep 
them straight in her mind while she followed complex narratives with 
many characters.  She also spoke of enjoying being able to continue
reading even when her eyes were tired.  She was able to scan chapters 
of a book and then listen to the machine read to her, much as she 
might listen to music.

@b(Difficulties)

There were four general areas of difficulties with the Reader that 
emerged during the interviews: slowness of scanning (especially when 
hard-bound books had to be pressed and held still), mistakes in 
scanning or pronunciation, bugs, and the voices, 

  (1) The scanner operates slowly and must be allowed to finish 
scanning the length of the glass plate.  All three found it difficult 
at times to hold a book steady long enough to ensure proper scanning.  
Sometimes a slight unsteadiness would result in errors in reading a 
line or two.  The children would then be willing to try to read those 
lines on their own.  If the errors covered more than that, the children 
preferred rescanning the entire page.  When the children themselves 
noticed that they had moved the book while the scanner was working, 
they pressed the green button to cancel that page and pressed it a 
second time to rescan it.  All this slows down reading any lengthy 
material such as a book.

  (2) The Reader makes mistakes of pronunciation or reading 
letters or words.  The children, who follow along in the printed 
page as they listen to the reading machine, then have to backtrack 
and locate the word in error and read it themselves.  

  (3) The machine can "get confused" when it encounters a bug in 
the programming and must be turned off and then on again to clear 
the error.

  (4) The voices received mixed reviews.  Each of the three said
the voices were hard to understand at first.  While they liked the 
variety of available voices, Perfect Paul was the clear favorite.  
One complained about the numerous flat intonation and lack of 
expression in the voices of the machine.  The children did note 
that when they became accustomed to the voices, it was easier to 
understand them.

@b(Suggestions)

When we asked them what things would they like to change, we
received a variety of answers.  One suggested providing a more
human quality to the voice, including better pronunciation and
phrasing, and more expression in the voice.  Another wanted a
larger keypad with one key per function, with legs or small
stands attached to allow one to place the keyboard on a slight
slant (like a standard computer keyboard).  

Several suggestions centered on changing or eliminating the
scanning function, from providing an automatic page turner to
developing a faster scanner.  We heard several suggestions for a
more automatic page scanning mechanism, such as a device into
which one would insert a book which would be read into memory
from beginning to end with a built-in page turner and mechanism
for holding the book still to minimize blurring and errors.  One
wanted a storage mechanism, for saving a scanning for future
reading.  Another suggested having the pages appear on a monitor
while the voice spoke, feeling it would be easier to follow
along than doing so in a book.  

All three stated that the system would be much more use to them
if it contained referencing capability.  For example, one
suggested that a dictionary be accessible from the keypad, which
could be queried for proper pronunciation and meaning of a
specific word.  Another wanted a similar feature for synonyms,
a thesaurus accessible from the keypad for comparison.   A
user-defined lexicon would also be of great use with the system,
as would the ability to read books in different languages.

All three felt the system was easy for a sighted person to use,
but two thought it would be much more difficult for a blind
person to use.  

The subjects will be interviewed again in two months.