A multi-function app for supporting reading and writing ability – teachers’ perspective

This study investigates if a mobile text-to- speech accommodation device can compensate for reading difficulties in an applied school set- ting. Twenty-six special education teachers and their students (n=26), whereof n=18 were elementary school students and n=8 were upper secondary education students used the text-to-speech function, without any prior experience of assistive technology. After the intervention all 26 participating teachers wrote down their reflections on 1-2 pages, which were analyzed using qualitative content analysis and cate- gorized into three themes. Results pointed to that the teachers were predominately positive of text-to-speech usage, and perceived the stu- dents as being independent when using text- to-speech functions, but this were conditioned on the amount of support and training that was provided. Other results pointed to that the teachers were optimistic about the impact of text-to- speech usage on expanded language-learning opportunities, and emphasized increased reading speed as the most important benefit of using this technology. Based on these results, text-to- speech functions seem to have the potential to compensate for reading difficulties