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 name is Ryan Skelton and I have cerebral palsy.the loss of dexterity in my hands as a result of cerebral palsy does not allow me to use a computer without the aid of Dragon NaturallySpeaking.
To digress a little bit if you'll forgive me I absolutely love computers I always did. I could never use them independently however because I just couldn't provide the input by myself. You see I couldn't use the keyboard that is until I started to type differently using Dragon. Once I learned that I could type independently I could do my own searches on the Internet which allow me to read the morning paper like everyone else. I don't have enough dexterity in my hands to turn the pages of a normal paper but with Dragon I could search a website for as long as I wanted. I didn't have to worry about my typist being tired or not being interested in the same topics that I was. But now back to the main part of my story.
I am now 34 years old and I'm a licensed clinical psychologist in the state of Oregon. I have used Dragon NaturallySpeaking to write reports at work, specifically I write all of my clinical case notes with Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I have a very good memory so during my intake interviews and therapy sessions I can remember the salient points that I need to document. But without Dragon I couldn't take the notes and in my profession unless you write something down it didn't happen.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking is literally the only way that I can write independently and confidentially. Prior to my use of speech recognition technology, I had to dictate all of my thoughts to a one-on-one personal assistant. This is how I got through elementary school, my words were always filtered through the hand of another person, this meant that I couldn't write a diary which was private and I could not send a private e-mail to my family and friends. Dragon NaturallySpeaking allows me to do both of these things as well as to take clinical notes that are between only myself and my computer.
With the help of this miraculous piece of software I can independently write appointments on my calendar. As a young man when I was unable to use the calendar independently I had to remember all of my appointments. For this reason I developed almost a photographic oral memory. I didn't realize until recently how much stress this caused me. Even though I could remember everything relying on only memory for important things in my personal life meant that everything had to be in my head all the time. I realized that with consistent use of Dragon NaturallySpeaking in my personal life I didn't have to remember everything all the time. Although I grew up without access to a paper and pencil I had to re think the way that I organized information. I have to remember that Dragon NaturallySpeaking was like my paper and pencil and I could use it just as easily. So what I'm saying is that without this software I would not be a psychologist. Without this software I would not be able to rely on myself to write down appointments. And without this softwareI could not write down the private thoughts that everyone has. To put it simply I would have a lot less independence, and a lot less dignity.
Thank you so much
Sincerely, Dr. Ryan Skelton Psy D.