Five winning stories will be selected by a panel of judges, and the winning entrants will each receive an Amazon Kindle 2 as well as Dragon NaturallySpeaking upgrades for three years.
My beautiful daughter, Sara, now 13, was diagnosed at age 7 with a rare, degenerative, neurological condition called Spinocerebellar Ataxia, Type 8. One of the symptoms is an intention tremor affecting her fine motor skills, which makes writing extremely difficult, and causes fatigue. Having this physical disability resulted in her placement in the Special Education program at school, where her peers, or an assigned aide would write for her. At home, she would dictate to me and I would write out all her homework. This went on for several years. Finally, in order to gain some independence, the Special Education caseworker assigned to address her orthopedic needs, provided her with a laptop computer that had Dragon Naturally Speaking installed. She also has a tremor in her voice so training and adaptation were a challenge for her, but her persistence paid off. During her Junior High school years, she was able to complete homework writing assignments by herself, with Dragon. At her 8th grade promotion ceremony, she proudly wore a medal awarded to her for attaining straight A's in English during her entire time in Junior High. Now she's off to High School, and of course, Dragon is going with her!