Speech to Text as a College Accommodation: Dictation for Students With Dyslexia and Dysgraphia

In high school, the adults organised your accommodations. There was a meeting, a plan, and teachers who were told what to do. At college, almost all of that flips: nobody is going to find you, and nothing in your IEP or 504 plan happens unless you ask for it.

That surprises a lot of students — usually in their first week of essays. This guide covers how the system actually works at college, how to ask for speech to text specifically, and how dictation helps if dyslexia or dysgraphia is what makes writing hard.

Does my IEP or 504 plan carry over to college?

No. A high school IEP or 504 plan does not transfer to college automatically, and on its own it is generally not enough documentation. That’s the U.S. Department of Education’s position in its guide for students with disabilities preparing for postsecondary education. Your old plan is still useful — it shows which supports have worked — but the college makes its own decision under its own process.

The biggest change is who starts the process. Colleges are not required to identify students with disabilities. You have to disclose and ask.

What laws apply to accommodations at college?

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibit disability discrimination at colleges and universities, and private institutions are generally covered by Title III of the ADA.

	High school	College
Main laws	IDEA and Section 504	Section 504 and the ADA
Who starts it	The school identifies and evaluates students	You disclose and request
What you get	An IEP or 504 plan, with services the school provides	Academic adjustments and auxiliary aids, if approved
Documentation	School evaluations	Documentation from a qualified professional, usually current
Cost of evaluation	School’s responsibility	Usually yours, unless another program covers it

The Department of Education describes the adjustments colleges provide as including note takers, recording devices, extended time and adaptive technology. Colleges do not have to provide personal tutoring, or adjustments that would fundamentally change a course or impose an undue burden.

How do I get speech to text approved as a college accommodation?

Contact your college’s disability services office, disclose your disability, and request dictation or speech to text as an accommodation, following the college’s procedure. Names vary — Disability Resource Center, Accessibility Services, Student Access Office — but almost every college has one.

A practical sequence:

1. Find the office and its procedure. Usually on the college website or in the student handbook.
2. Gather documentation. Expect to need documentation from a qualified professional — a psychologist, physician or similar — describing your diagnosis and how it affects your academic work. Your old IEP or 504 plan is useful supporting evidence but usually not enough on its own.
3. Ask specifically. Name what you need: “speech-to-text software for written assignments”, and separately, “speech to text or a scribe for exams”.
4. Ask early. Before the semester if you can. Approvals take time, and they are not retroactive to the essay you already struggled through.
5. Deliver the letter. Many colleges give you an accommodation letter to share with each instructor. Instructors can’t apply an accommodation they haven’t been told about.

Is using speech to text for college essays cheating?

No. Dictation changes how the words get onto the page, not who does the thinking. You still choose the argument, find the evidence, structure the paragraphs and revise the draft. Speech Recognition Cloud types what you say — it does not generate essay content for you.

Two sensible habits:

• Keep optional AI rewriting features off for assessed work. Speech Recognition Cloud’s Professional plan includes AI Modes that can rework text you’ve dictated. They’re optional, and for graded writing it’s simplest not to use them. The education editions used by schools have AI features switched off entirely.
• If you’re unsure, ask. Your instructor or disability services office can confirm what’s expected for a particular assessment.

How does dictation help college students with dyslexia or dysgraphia?

College writing is longer and more frequent than high school writing, so a spelling or handwriting barrier costs more every week. Dictation takes that barrier out of composing.

• Dyslexia. You can write with the vocabulary you’d use out loud instead of the words you know you can spell under pressure. First drafts get longer and say more. There’s more on this in speech to text for dyslexia.
• Dysgraphia. Handwriting and sometimes typing are slow and effortful. Speaking a draft removes the physical act of writing from the thinking. See dictation for dysgraphia.

What changes is the kind of error you need to catch. Dictated drafts don’t have misspellings; they have right-sounding wrong words — affect for effect, a misheard author’s name. Build in a read-back step before you submit. Many students find reading their draft aloud, or having it read back to them, catches most of these.

Speech Recognition Cloud also lets you add your own vocabulary — author names, subject terms, lab names — and set up text replacements for phrases you use constantly, like a standard citation format.

Can I use speech to text in college exams?

Sometimes, but it’s arranged separately. Exam accommodations go through disability services, and many colleges run exams with accommodations in a testing center on college computers, where you can’t install your own software.

Ask disability services three things:

1. Is dictation or a scribe available for exams?
2. What software do they use, and can you practise with it beforehand?
3. How much notice do they need before each exam?

Don’t assume approval for coursework covers exams. They’re usually separate lines on the accommodation letter.

Does Speech Recognition Cloud work on a Mac?

No. Speech Recognition Cloud is a Windows 10 and Windows 11 application. It does not run on macOS, Chromebooks or iPads. A companion mobile app is available on paid plans for dictating on the go.

That’s a real limitation for college students, many of whom use Macs. Before choosing any dictation tool, check which computer you’ll actually be writing on. If you have a Windows laptop, or your college lets you install software on campus Windows computers, it will work. If you’re on a Mac, look at tools built for macOS instead.

Other limits worth knowing:

• It needs an internet connection. Recognition happens in the cloud.
• It doesn’t read text aloud. If you also need text-to-speech for reading, you’ll need a separate tool.
• It’s for live dictation, not recordings. It doesn’t transcribe recorded lectures.

What does speech to text cost for a college student?

There’s a free plan with 20 minutes of dictation a month, and the Personal / Educational plan is US$99 a year for unlimited dictation. Colleges buying for their students can use speech to text for universities, and all plans are on the pricing page.

Before paying yourself, ask disability services whether the college funds assistive technology. The Department of Education also notes that state vocational rehabilitation agencies may help eligible students with some disability-related costs, such as evaluations.

Pricing accurate at time of publication. Prices in USD and will convert to your local currency at checkout. Verify current pricing before purchasing.

Is it worth trying before you ask for it?

Three quick questions:

1. Do your essays say much less than you know? Then dictation is worth testing.
2. Are you writing on a Windows computer? If not, pick a different tool.
3. Will you proofread what you dictate? If yes, it’s likely to work for you.

If the answer is yes to all three, install the free version and dictate one real assignment. Bringing a sample to your disability services appointment helps show exactly what the accommodation does for you.

Download Speech Recognition Cloud free →

Still in high school? See speech to text in an IEP or 504 plan and speech to text for students. For heavy writing loads, there’s also dictation for long-form writing and voice dictation for accessibility.

Who wrote this?

I’m Russell Bewsell, founder and CEO of Speech Recognition Cloud.

I’ve worked with Dragon and other speech recognition engines since 1999, deploying them across schools, universities, hospitals, courts and government departments, and I’m still in the industry today.

This page describes federal guidance in general terms. It is not legal advice, and every college sets its own procedures — your disability services office is the authority on yours.

— Russell Bewsell, Founder and CEO, Speech Recognition Cloud

Microsoft Word and Windows are trade marks of Microsoft Corporation. Google Docs and Chromebook are trade marks of Google LLC. Mac, macOS and iPad are trade marks of Apple Inc. These marks are used solely to identify products factually.