Sounds Like - Spell, Write!
by Applied Human Factors
Type faster and more accurately with a phonetic onscreen keyboard!
This amazing new approach to typing uses a phonetic keyboard. The user finds a word by selecting the sounds in the word (e.g., phonemes) instead of the letters in the word. This “phonetic typing” (patent pending) approach to typing was shown to significantly increase spelling accuracy in both children and adults with spelling disabilities. This product is for someone who has problems with spelling but is able to use a standard keyboard and mouse. If the candidate user has trouble using a keyboard and mouse because of a physical mobility disability, check out the Sound-It-Out Phonetic Keyboard add-on for REACH.
What is “Sounds Like”?
“Sounds Like” is a special onscreen keyboard with word prediction that helps you spell. The “Sounds Like” keyboard can perform three types of functions:
- A special phonetic keyboard (Patent Pending) for finding and typing words by reporting how those words sound
- A standard keyboard typing letters (you can, of course, use the hardware keyboard as well)
- A numbers and functions keyboard for typing numbers and all those other unusual characters and functions you can select with a hardware keyboard
In all three types of onscreen keyboards, you will be selecting keys displayed on the keyboards by pointing-and-clicking on them with your mouse.
Like all products from Applied Human Factors, “Sounds Like” was designed using a “human factors” approach, in which the designers concentrated on the target user population, worked with them, asked for their opinion, measured their performance under different conditions, etc., in order to determine their needs, capabilities, and preferences. As a result, a great deal of thought and planning went into this product to make it something that is usable and useful.
How does it work?
The “Sounds Like” phonetic keyboard lets you to “type” a word by inputting its sounds (e.g., “phonemes”) instead of its letters. Originally targeted for persons with spelling disabilities, this approach can be useful to anyone who knows how a word sounds but not how it is spelled. Using this approach, significant improvements in spelling accuracy were found for persons both with and without spelling disabilities.
Shown below is the “Pictures” phonetic keyboard. Each phonetic key has a picture of an object intended to help cue the user of the sound for that key. This feature was included to help anyone who might benefit from seeing pictures for cues – for example, in the picture below the key for the “D” sound shows the picture of a “dog.” Anyone who does not need or benefit from the pictures can pick one of the other phonetic keyboards.
Each phonetic key represents a sound – most are just phonemes but for some keys, phonemes have been combined in an attempt to make them more easy to interpret and use. The consonant sounds are located together on the left side of the keyboard and the vowel sounds are on the right. Other standard computer keyboard keys such as “Enter,” “Shift,” etc., are on the extreme right and lower right. Each phonetic key has a text label intended to help the user determine what sound that key represents (e.g., “a” for the short A – ‘AE’ sound, and “A” for long A – ‘EY’ sound).
In addition to the text label and picture, you can hear a sound recording of the sound assigned to a key by pointing at it for a specified time (you can adjust how long in the Sounds Like Settings). This recording might say “bih – bus” when pointing at the “B..” key on the Pictures keyboard. As an option, you can hear just the phonetic sound “bih” when you point at the “B..” key (select “Change Phoneme Key Sound…” in the Keyboard Menu). These recordings also can be turned off if you don’t want or need them.
As you select the sounds in a word, the “Say It!” replay window can be shown to remind you what sounds you already entered as shown in the picture below. In Frame 1, the user has selected an initial “T” sound, in Frame 2 a “long A” sound, and in Frame 3 a final “P” sound (to type the word “tape). At any point, when clicked with your mouse, the “Say It” button (on the right side) attempts to “blend” the sounds already selected. However, the quality of this blending will depend on the speech synthesiser you are using.
Note: With some speech synthesisers the quality of the phonetic blending produced by selecting the “Say It!” button might be poor or even non-existent (no sound is produced).
See a detailed walk-through of how Sounds Like works
Features
- Keyboard Themes
- Homophone Help
- Customisable Keyboard Size
- Customisable “Sounds Like” User Dictionary and Phonetic Dictionaries
- And more…
“Sounds Like” – Spell, Write! is available:
- as a stand-alone Single User Program
- with Smart Keys Technology Add-on included
- with Smart Lists Technology Add-on included
- with Smart Keys and Smart Lists Technology Add-ons included
Minimum System Requirements
- Windows
- Operating System: 2000, XP, Vista
- Sound Card: Required if speech synthesiser is used
- Operating System: 2000, XP, Vista
Note: Microsoft Text-to-Speech is included and it requires 20+ MB on the C:drive. Other speech engines must be Microsoft SAPI compliant to be compatible.
Download Demo
Sounds Like - Spell, Write! is targeted at the following age ranges:
- Early Primary
- Mid Primary
- Upper Primary
- Secondary School
- Adult
Sounds Like - Spell, Write! is designed to foster development in the areas of:
- Literacy
- Communication
- Access to computers
Users can access Sounds Like - Spell, Write! in the following ways:
- Mouse/ Trackball/ Joystick
- Keyboard
- Single Switch
- Multiple Switches
Prices
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Freight free shipping anywhere within Australia or New Zealand!
Prices are listed in Australian Dollars