Dictation software for dysgraphia
Say the sentence. Something else does the writing down.
- Punctuation included
- Your ideas, unchanged
- Two-minute setup
In short
- Getting the letters down takes the attention the sentence needed.
- So what gets written is shorter and plainer than what was in your head.
- Talking splits the two apart. You compose; it does the writing down.
- Punctuation and capitals arrive on their own, so there is no tidying after.
There is usually a gap between what someone with dysgraphia can say about a subject and what they hand in about it. Not a small one. You can talk for five minutes about the book and then produce four flat sentences, and everybody involved knows those four sentences are not the point.
The reason is that writing is two jobs at once. Working out what to say, and getting it down. When the second one takes most of the effort, the first one gets whatever is left — so sentences get shorter, the interesting word gets swapped for an easier one, and the idea you were building loses its ending.
Dictation splits the two jobs apart. You do the thinking. The writing down is not your problem any more.
Step one
Hold one key
Right Option on a Mac, Right Ctrl on Windows. One key, and you can change which.
Step two
Say it
Whole sentences or half-formed ones. No punctuation out loud, no pausing, no waiting.
Step three
Let go
Finished text lands where the cursor was. Punctuated, spelled, and still your words.
The punctuation is not a small detail
Most dictation gives you a run of words with no full stops in it. For a lot of people that is a minor annoyance. Here it hands back the exact job you were trying to avoid — deciding where sentences end, adding capitals, breaking a paragraph up, all after the fact, on writing you now have to reread to punctuate.
Full stops, commas, question marks and capitals come from the way you talked, so they are already there when it lands. That is what makes the difference between dictation being useful and dictation being a second draft.
Sentences end
Full stops and capitals arrive from how you spoke. You never say them out loud.
Ums removed
False starts and filler come out. You can talk it through and still get clean text.
Ideas untouched
It does not reorganise or improve anything. If the writing is good, that was you.
It types where the cursor is
No separate window and nothing to copy across. Click into the document, the email or the form, hold the key, and talk.
The strikes mattered less for what they won than for what they showed. Ordinary people could stop the country if enough of them agreed to.
To mrs.doyle@school.uk
Subject Thursday
Hello. Sam will be out on Thursday morning for an appointment and back after lunch.
Three causes to remember: the price of bread, the failed harvest, and the war nobody wanted to pay for.
If this is for a student
A fair number of people reading this are parents. Two honest things are worth saying before you install anything.
Whether dictation is allowed on a piece of assessed work is the school’s call, not ours, and it is worth asking before it becomes the way homework gets done. Exam access arrangements are decided by the school or the exam board, and nobody selling software can tell you what yours will say.
What it is good for, without asking anybody, is everything that is not assessed. Notes, revision, first drafts, emails, the paragraph that has been stuck for an hour. Getting the ideas out of a head and onto a page is usually where the evening is lost.
Better than what came with the computer
Windows and macOS both include dictation. They stop after a pause, so you restart them mid-thought. Punctuation is patchy or spoken aloud. Neither learns a name however many times you correct it. Each of those gaps gets handed back to the person writing, which is the one thing this page is trying to avoid.
Stops after a pause
It cuts out mid-thought and has to be restarted by hand.
Punctuation is yours
Either spoken out loud, or added afterwards at the keyboard.
Forgets your words
However many times you correct the same name, it never learns it.
60 minutes free, no card. Enough for a couple of real pieces of work rather than a test sentence.
60 minutes free · no card
Everywhere you already write
JotMic types at your cursor, the same as a keyboard does. Nothing to integrate and no plugin to install. If there is a text box, it works.
Plus Outlook, Word, Teams and every other app on your Mac or PC.
Setup takes about two minutes
Download it, allow the microphone, pick a key. No voice training and nothing to read aloud first. It works from the first sentence.
Read next
Dyslexia
When spelling interrupts the sentence, and you write around the word instead.
ADHD
The four-day email, and why saying it is easier than starting it.
Offline dictation
Dictating with the wifi off, and when that is the engine you want.
Questions
Does dictation help with dysgraphia?
It removes the writing-it-down part, which is the part that uses up the attention. What is left is deciding what to say, and that was never the problem. People are usually surprised by how much longer and better their dictated writing is than their typed writing.
Is typing not already easier than handwriting?
For some people, a lot. For others it swaps one effortful thing for another — hunting for keys still takes attention, and attention is the thing in short supply. Talking is the version where the sentence and the getting-it-down do not compete.
Do I have to say the punctuation out loud?
No. Full stops, commas, question marks and capitals come from the way you talk, so they arrive already in place. Punctuation and layout are often the hardest part to add afterwards, which is why this matters here.
Will it change what I said?
It drops ums and false starts, adds punctuation and capitals, and leaves everything else exactly as spoken. It does not reorganise your ideas or improve your sentences — if the writing is good, that was you.
Will it spell names and technical words right?
Add them to your vocabulary once and they stay right. Teachers, classmates, place names, the vocabulary of a subject — the words that come up constantly and are worst to correct.
Can my child use it for homework?
It types into whatever they are writing in, so mechanically yes. Whether it is allowed for a particular piece of work is the school’s decision, not ours, and worth asking before it becomes a habit on assessed work.
Is it allowed in exams?
That is decided by the school or the exam board, and access arrangements vary. Nobody selling software can promise you an answer to that. Ask the SENCO or the exams officer.
Does it work on a school laptop?
It needs installing, so it depends on whether the machine is locked down. On a personal Mac or PC it takes about two minutes.
Is it better than the dictation built into the computer?
The built-in ones stop after a pause, leave the punctuation to you, and never learn a name however many times you correct it. All of that lands back on the person writing. For a sentence or two they are fine, and they are free.
Does it need training on your voice?
No. No setup and nothing to read aloud first. Install it, pick a key, and talk.
Is this a treatment?
No. It is a way to write with your voice instead of your hands, and it does not diagnose or treat anything. An occupational therapist or a specialist teacher will have better ideas about handwriting than we will.
What does it cost to try?
60 minutes of dictation, free, no card. Enough for a couple of pieces of real work.
60 minutes free on both engines, no card. Nothing to set up, nothing to read aloud.
60 minutes free · no card