Dreams Lost and Reclaimed

Celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day with Voiceitt

I topped my class in year 12, but wasn’t able to do a university degree.

Global Accessibility Awareness Day champions digital accessibility. Digital accessibility is realised when all people with disabilities can fully access and engage with all digital applications and content. Today, on Global Accessibility Awareness Day, I celebrate Voiceitt.

Throughout primary and secondary school, I had full-time funding for integration aids. My cerebral palsy affects the physical aspects of reading and writing, rendering me very slow. My integration aids would read things out loud to me and write or type as I dictated. With their assistance, I could complete tasks in half the time it would take me to do them on my own. I utilised spare periods to complete homework while I had their assistance.

Academically, I thrived at school. I graduated with the highest ATAR in my year level. It was a given that I would go to university. 

I began an arts degree. I was provided with a note-taker during contact hours. The vast majority of university work is completed outside those hours. A few weeks in, I realised that, though I had the intellectual capacity to complete a university degree, I couldn't keep up with the physical demands. I could only complete one subject at a time, which would take twelve years to complete my course. That didn’t appeal!

I dropped out of university and studied a Diploma in Counseling at Bible College. I could have achieved far more with my intellect. I was devastated. I entered depression. Dreams crushed. Expectations steamrolled.

I graduated secondary school in 2002. In the mid 2000s I discovered a software that read things out loud to me. I could scan every page of my textbooks into the program, and it would read the text aloud. It was a tedious process, but the software changed my life. I could read things at a reasonable pace. That meant it took me a few hours to read a chapter of my textbook, rather than the majority of the week. I had time to work on my assignments.

As a writer, in 2024, the accessibility and inclusivity of technology transformed my life.

Since early primary school, I’ve dreamt of a speech-to-text technology that works for my voice. That dream came true when I was introduced to Voiceitt. Voiceitt is a speech-to-text technology that recognises non-standard speech. I can now write 600 words an hour. Prior to being introduced to Voiceitt, I was lucky to write that in an afternoon. 

Last year my journal article was published in the Stimulus: The New Zealand Journal of Christian Thought and Practice. In the article I demonstrated that assisting people in ways that empower them through dignity and respect undergird their wellbeing. Conversely, if support workers assume their clients are passive or childlike, the personal development of those clients is stunted. I've also written a journal article about a personal health issue, which is soon to be published.

In the 2000s, a university degree was elusive. In the last three years, I have written two journal articles. If I wanted to, I could reach out and get that degree!

As we celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day, advances in technology are transforming lives. Lives like mine. Lives like those of many people with disabilities. Voiceitt has catapulted my writing and creativity into a new era.