I have tried about twenty of these programs in the last year to see if any work with screen readers and sadly as you say they are graphical, so only work in the outline view. Some have their own text to speech feature such as Inspiration and Knowledge Maker - others allow the text to speech program to work whilst typing but none work with ease when using an outside screen reader for all sections that are displayed within the window. Some use keyboard strokes for entering text and the screen reader says the letters but cannot read the data once it has been fixed within a symbol or on a line.
I am off to try MindGenius and MindManager with latest version Jaws again just in case I am wrong as those two work well with keystrokes. Moving the lines around the central idea with mouse cursor keys is an art form!
Best Wishes E.A.
Mrs E.A. Draffan
Assistive Technologist
Mobile: 07976 289103
http://www.emptech.info