Listen To This Website

We work very hard to make our services and ourselves as accessible as possible to as many people as possible - not just people with a disability. This website has been prepared using text to speech software that will read it aloud to you. We have set this page up on our website to explain why in more detail and to let you know how to listen to it.

Using a voice-over on our website allows access to:

People with Learning disabilities
People with Low literacy and reading skills
People with Dyslexia (currently more than 6 million in the UK)
People with mild visual impairments or limited vision
Children and the ageing population
People with English as a second language
People who would rather listen than read!

By default, the page will not play automatically when it has downloaded. Of course, not everyone needs or wants to have a page read to them, especially if they have visited it previously. For this reason there is a ‘Text Reader’ icon located above the text on screen.

All sites using the Talklets bar interface have a Show Hide button. If you click on this icon a text-to-speech toolbar will appear at the bottom of the page. From here you can play, pause or stop the speech. You can also highlight particular parts of the page to only hear those as well as zoom in, or out, on a page. You can control the text to speech tool by using either your mouse (link) or your keyboard (link):

SMART STORY FINDER

As far as we know, Talklets' Smart Story Finder is unique amongst web-based solutions. The idea is that, rather too often, finding the main content on a page can be a pain for many users, but can be done pretty quickly and accurately by a machine, even if the content structure is 'less than perfect'.

Even well structured CMS/template-based websites can become difficult to navigate by visually impaired users, simply by having a very large number of links added to a particular content region, for example. What Smart Story Finder can do is offer another means of finding your content quickly. Just press Stop, then Play (Q then S HotKeys), and wait for your audio. There should be a pause while the content is found and processed, and then you may hear the audio fetch whilst your content is actually fetched. The pause will be longer the larger the page is.

Finally, you can convert the page into an MP3 file by clicking on the Save to mp3 icon. This will transfer the page, or any part of a page, into an MP3 file and save it to your computer.

Save to mp3 behaves similarly to Play, but downloads the audio as a file which can then be stored locally or on a device such as an iPod. If no text is selected, pressing Save will trigger the Smart Story Finder, and download the found content as an mp3 audio file. If text is selected, Save will download the selected text content as an mp3 audio file.

You may need to add www.specialeducationalneeds.co.uk to your list of 'Trusted Sites' to prevent the MP3 download feature from being blocked by your web browser.

We would like to acknowledge all the help and support we have received from Textic who have assisted us by providing text to speech facilities for our website. We wholeheartedly recommend them.

MOUSE FEATURES

Double click: double clicking your left mouse button will prompt the system to attempt to read from the word you clicked on. Tip: if the word you wish to read from is a link or other 'click-able' element, simply click near it, but not on it, to avoid triggering the elements action (e.g. taking you to a new page).
Single click: clicking your left mouse button once will pause the speech. Tip: click the play button to resume. Or double click on the word left highlighted
Tip: single and double clicking offer a quick and easy interface for many users able to use a mouse, including those who are proficient readers, who simply want to sit back and listen, or listen while they do something else...
Point-Out-Loud: The default scenario is that the central button on the floating bar will toggle this feature. Click it to mouse over elements and have their text read aloud immediately, with no other action needed. You can also access this feature by switching on HotKeys (F9 or Alt 1) and pressing M.
Drag selection highlighting: click and drag your mouse across the page to select text. Then press play or the S key with HotKeys active, to play the text. Or Save to save it.
Drag selection highlighting: click and drag your mouse across the page to select text. Then press play or the S key with HotKeys active, to play the text. Or Save to save it.
Right Click & Ctrl + Right Click: Clicking the right button on the mouse will bring up additional features in a pop-up menu, such as diction look-up and mispronunciation submissions.

KEYSTROKES

Keystroke interfaces (HotKeys or key-stroke navigation as they are often referred to) are intended for those users who are not primarily mouse users. Often these users are visually impaired, but not exclusively so. Please note that mouse features may get necessarily degraded when HotKeys are on, for the interfaces not to clash.

To switch on HotKeys, press F9 or alt + 1. To hear a list of the current HotKeys, press F12 (or alt + 2).

Here is a list of the current HotKey features of Talklets:

F9: toggle keystroke navigation
F12: list keystroke navigation
S: Smart Story Finder; automatically find the main story on the page
Q: silence speech
M: Toggle the mouse over reader. When on, the text of the element the mouse is over will be read
A: go to next link
P: go to next paragraph
H: go to next heading
L: go to next list
I: go to next item in a list
E: go to the next editable input. N.B. This will mean your key presses will enter text and not activate HotKeys. To activate hot key interaction again press F8
B: next button
F8: step out of input element, so access keys are re-enabled
T: next table
X: next DIV
SHIFT plus any of the above, except the Smart Story Finder: Reads the previous
Backspace: go to previous page
Full stop and shift: next element. Most element types will be spoken aloud
Comma and SHIFT: previous element. Most element types will be spoken aloud
Z: Zoom in
SHIFT plus Z: zoom out
V: read again
Tip: In HotKey mode, there is an 'audio fetch' noise that plays whilst the system is getting your audio. If you hear this playing for an unusually long time, either you have selected a very large section of text, or you are have network problems. If you don't hear it playing, try stopping the player (Q) and trying again.
Tip: If a page is not easy to navigate, as, perhaps, it has no headings, you can try the Smart Story Finder. With HotKeys active, press Q to make sure the player is stopped, and press play, without selecting any text or elements. The system will attempt to find the main content on the page base on its structure and various metrics.
Tip: To open a Talklets enabled web page without a screen reader; On a Microsoft Windows machine a keyboard user can press the Windows Key and E, then alt and D, then type the URL of the Talklets enabled site, and Return.

BASIC CONTROLS

Much like many media players, Talklets provides play/pause/resume/stop features. However Talklets also has additional behaviours you should know about...

Pressing the play button (S HotKey): If no text is selected and the player is not reading, pressing play will trigger the Smart Story Finder, and plays the automatically found content. If text is selected, pressing play will trigger the reading of that text. If the player is reading, pressing play will pause the player (as will single clicking anywhere on the page). If the player has been paused, pressing Play will resume the player.
Stopping (Q HotKey) will reset the player.
Keystrokes Save to mp3 behaves similarly, but downloads the audio as a file, which can then be stored locally or on a device.
If no text is selected, pressing Save will trigger the Smart Story Finder, and download the found content as an mp3 audio file. If text is selected, Save will download the selected text content as an mp3 audio file.

Please email us if you find a link that is not working on our website

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