Speech-to-text assistive technology for the written expression of students with traumatic brain injuries: A single...

Traumatic brain injury in childhood (TBI) is a chronic health condition. As decreased memory, language, and rapid psychomotor impairments are known to accompany pediatric TBI (Babikian et al., 2011), students who have experienced a moderate-to-severe TBI are at particular risk for academic deficits, including writing difficulties. The purpose of this study was to measure the effects of a speech-to-text assistive technology (AT) accommodation that was implemented to bypass the impaired handwriting and spelling (i.e., transcription) skills resulting from TBI. Three African American male students (Grades 4, 8, and 9) who received formal special education services under the category of TBI participated in this study. With the application of the speech-to-text AT accommodation, all participants' total words written (TWW), words spelled correctly (WSC), and correct writing sequences (CWS) significantly increased compared to the handwriting control condition. One hundred percent nonoverlapping data points across participants and dependent variables was achieved. Implications of the findings for the school-based treatment of TBI, study limitations, and future avenues of study are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).