History

I thought I would begin with some background on my history using speech recognition. In 1993 I was a reasonably well-adjusted 33-year-old. Life seemed to be playing itself out as expected. I had a job, a husband and one child. Then one night, I had a brain aneurysm which affected my left side rendering my left hand useless (yep, I was left-handed).

For the first year as I relearned to walk and talk, I received Social Security. When those payments ended, I was faced with the daunting prospect of finding a job as a disabled worker. My earlier life decisions to get an art degree, have meaningless service industry jobs and to nobly disavow computers and technology seemed increasingly dimwitted.

After applying for every conceivable job someone with no transferable skills and only one working arm could possibly do and being roundly rejected, I was consumed with a growing sense of dread. What could I possibly do with the rest of my life? Get ready; here it comes... learn to use SPEECH RECOGNITION!


Tips

Speaking clearly is one of the most important things you can do to improve recognition. If you enunciate your words, NaturallySpeaking is more likely to recognize them correctly.

• Speak continuously and enunciate each and every word.
• Speak and phrases rather than individual words.
• Do not mumble or slur your words.Try not to say "um" or "uh." Instead, pause silently or turn your microphone off as you formulate your thoughts.
• As a new user, speak slightly slower than you normally do.
• Remember to dictate punctuation.