User Comments and Case Studies

Penfriend products are suitable for assisting a range of conditions, including Dyslexia, visual impairment, Cerebral Palsy, Multiple Sclerosis, Motor Neurone Disease, Stroke, limb deformities and any condition where the physical effort of typing is difficult. It is also of benetit to people with literacy difficulties or specific learning difficulties.

These case studies are organised by the medical diagnoses that users have. The studies were written by the users themselves, or their teachers. Permission has been granted for their use by Penfriend Ltd. Penfriend Ltd has only made minor editing adjustments.

Case Studies

A few quotes from users and teachers about Penfriend

Je suis aphasique (perte de la lecture et de l'écriture suite à un AVC en décembre 2001) donc j'utilise Penfriend comme outil de lecture avec le narrateur et comme outil d'écriture avec la prédiction de mots. Sans ce logiciel je ne peux pas me servir de mon ordinateur

I am aphasic (cannot read or write following a stroke in December 2001) so I use Penfriend (FR)to read using the voices and write using prediction. Without this program I cannot use my computer.

- Dominique Martin, France 2014,

"We are running penfriend on Microsoft surface tablets using the mobile usb device. Runs really well on windows 8 on these tablets."

- Ross Forrester, Sacred Heart College, Aukland, N.Z. 2013

THIS SOFTWARE IS SPOOKILY GOOD AT PREDICTION

- J R RAINBIRD

"We have one of our student cohort who suffers from Cerebral Palsy. She has been most excited about this product as it has helped her immensely."

- David Whelan, Australia, 2013

"We decided to load penfriend on our computers as it loads quicker and has a better prediction system. We find it easier for the students to use quickly.... our other program is TextHelp Read and Write Gold 10 which is networked on all computers and netbooks."

-Ross Forrester, New Zealand, 2013

"I am a gentleman who has cerebral palsy and uses a computer everyday to do emails, write letters, Skype, MSN and Facebook.

I have been using Penfriend XP for many years now and I wouldn’t know where I would be without it now, it’s like my best piece of software which I have ever purchased. I use a keyboard with a keyguard using one finger to type everything and without Penfriend this would be very slow.

I mainly use Penfriend for its word prediction feature which speeds up my typing which makes my work on the computer fast. I also have the voice feature turned on as I know that I have the right word without reading the document and I also find the feature speak the sentence useful as you can tell if what you are typing sounds right.

I think that Penfriend is a great piece of software and it has certainly changed how I use a computer."

- Stuart, 2011

"This one of the best things I've got for my son, it works on every aspect of his laptop. Top marks for communication and delivery would highly recommend"

- Miss D Williams

I write a lot and typing takes a long time, but my penfriend has made this much easier for me, especially with the speech feature switched on. I have been using it for many years on different computers,...

- Robert J Soper

" Penfriend is an exceptionally valuable tool, used to enable our students to express themselves more productively when writing."
- Gill Bushby, Exams Officer and Assessment Co-ordinator, Treloar School

"This is a remarkably sophisticated program for a mere £120, offering a powerful screen reader, text magnification and onscreen keyboard - all this in nine major European languages...

Penfriend is a comprehensive literacy aid which can boost confidence and increase reading and writing skills across the age and ability range and should be a mandatory purchase for any school and resource centre"
- Chris Goddard, Training and Development Manager, Bristol's Disabled Living Centre

"R is finally sitting his Standard Grade English next week and has opted to use (Penfriend) XL as the lexicon is much more appropriate, .... he is impressed with the improvements you have made."

Two months later.

R got a grade 1! He is sitting Higher English this year, using Penfriend, but obviously needs the bigger lexicon that XL provides.

One of the good things about his exam result is that the younger boys in the school who are using Penfriend can now see that their dyslexia does not need to be a barrier to achievement, and it has really motivated them to stick in and persevere with the software.

- a Teacher, Scotland.

'Penfriend XL 3.0 has the added bonus of lexicons in eight languages, other than English, including French, Spanish, German, Italian and Latin. This new dimension enables users to have support when writing text for MFL in education, business or recreational environments.

Students have commented on how reassuring and helpful it is when they and supporting adults, such as teaching assistants or parents, are nonspecialists or not fluent in the language themselves."

- Victoria Crivelli, Special Educational Needs Advisor

" I have the most dyslexic student ever. She is using Dragon Dictate and Penfriend XL and is flying from having nothing except being wonderfully verbal and intelligent."

- Naomi Forrester, Speaking Solutions, New Zealand

I am an occupational therapist, (that means I help children access their occupations, one of which is to be able to record work in school). I recommend Penfriend for a lot of pupils, both those with a physical need and those with a learning need, as I find it develops the speed that they can record writing on the computer, as they have to press less keys to write. As it predicts ahead, I find it also helps with reading and spelling and more importantly self esteem. It makes them more equal to their peers in the speed that they can record. It is also great that it works with Clicker as children with even more challenging needs can record, like their peers. I think it's an excellent inclusive product!

- 'Kerry Arnison, Occupational therapist advisor for assistive technology, countess of Chester NHS foundation trust'

A brilliant word predictor with speech, ideal for SEN and inclusion into mainstream.

- John Dunkerton, Exhall Grange Science College

"Penfriend is a 'cracking' program with excellent lexicons and hidden sophistication in its ease of use."

- Clive Williams

"I have not stopped writing since Nick installed Penfriend this afternoon - IT IS AWESOME. With MindReader it took me a day to write half a page..... The prediction is absolutely fantastic and in such a short space of time it's predicting so many new words of mine. 1/4 of the effort and 10x the speed. Now my hands should keep up with my brain.

Thank you for this magnificent gift of freedom and for taking the frustration out of writing for me."

- Jenny, Cerebral Palsy user, South Africa.

"I have just watched a ten year old try Penfriend for the first time. I wish you could have seen the smiles."

- Raewyn Matheson, New Zealand

"Penfriend portable is the best word prediction program and the portability is amazing. I have increased the number of people I call at work from 86 to 148, because I use the abbreviations section and let it type for me."

- Melissa Coates

"I am VERY impressed with it and am currently writing a networking assignment, so am using that to make a lexicon"

- Sarah Davies