Why Not Just Listen?
First of all, every student in has the right to learn how to read and write. Using computer software that will do the reading and writing for them defeats the purpose of learning these important life skills. As a teacher, you know that reading is not the same as listening to something being read to you. Similarly, writing is not the same as having something written for you. Asking a capable braille-using student to use reading and speech-to-text technology, then, would be equivalent to asking a capable print reader to do exactly the same. Listening is an important skills which will be used throughout the student’s life. However, relying solely on listening will limit your braille-reading student’s ability to access many materials. Also, listening to text takes much longer than reading it. Scanning through a digital voice recording can be a tedious and could take much longer than scanning through braille text. Finally, research has shown that individuals who use braille are more likely to be gainfully employed in the future.
Speech output and listening to text may seem like a good solution in the classroom, and many braille-reading students do use it to access their materials. However, solely relying on computer speech to text technology could potentially it inhibit the student's right to independently learn how to read and write and may compromise employment in the future.