How can speech technology be used to help people with disabilities? Cooperation and working together

Content Language Technology Speech Technology Speech Synthesis Speech Recognition Assistive Technology Learning Disabilitiy

Language Technology

We teach computers to communicate with people! Language Technology human language technology encompasses computational methods, computer programs and electronic devices analysing, producing or modifying texts and speech We teach computers to communicate with people!

Language Technology Goal: create software products that have some knowledge of human language natural language interfaces communication between people with different mother tongues original aim: fully automatic translation between different languages 5

Language Technology natural language processing (NLP) computational linguistics (CL) speech technology

Speech Technology

Speech Technology designed to duplicate and respond to the human voice game software aid marketing goods service by telephone communication with computers without a keyboard aids to voice-disabled, hearing-disabled and blind people

Speech Technology Subfields speech synthesis speech recognition speaker recognition speaker verification speech encoding

Speech Synthesis

Speech Synthesis computer-generated simulation of human speech translate written information into aural information mobile applications assists the vision-impaired content can be read aloud

Speech Synthesis tool for artificial production of human speech: speech computer or speech synthesizer text-to-speech (TTS): converts normal language text into speech helpful for people with visual impairments or reading disabilities allows them to listen to written words

Speech Synthesis

Speech Synthesis Homer Dudley's VODER (Voice Operating Demonstrator) 1939 at the World's Fair in New York first device that could generate human speech electronically composition of every speech sound was done manually

Speech Recognition

Speech Recognition ability of a machine or program to identify words and phrases in spoken language and convert them to a machine-readable format automatic speech recognition (ASR) computer speech recognition speech to text (STT)

Speech Recognition speaker dependent / speaker independent systems easy to use and available for everyone inable to capture words due to variations of pronunciation lack of support for most languages inability to sort through background noise leads to inaccuracies

Speech Recognition speech-to-text processing voice dialing voice search

Assistive Technology

Assistive Technology item, piece of equipment, software program, or product system that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of persons with disabilities different disabilities require different assistive technologies

Assistive Technology positioning devices / keyboards (hardware) screen readers / communication programs (software) special learning materials educational software wheelchairs braces etc.

Assistive Technology helps people who have difficulties in speaking typing writing remembering seeing hearing learning walking

Learning Disability Assistive Technology for people with Learning Disabilities is defined as any device, piece of equipment or system that helps to work around or compensate for any individual’s specific learning deficits AT doesn’t cure or eliminate difficulties, but it allows to capitalize the strengths and bypass areas of difficulty

Learning Disability Learning problems addressed by assistive technology: Listening Math Organization and memory Reading Writing

Learning Disability Proofreading programs Word-predicition programs Speech-recognition programs Speech synthesizer / screen readers Talking spell checkers and electronic dictionaries

Learning Disability Variable-speed tape recorders Alternative keyboards Optical character recognition Abbreviation expanders Audio books and publications

Sources http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/definition/speech-recognition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_technology http://www.readingrockets.org/article/assistive-technology-kids- learning-disabilities-overview https://www.atia.org/at-resources/what-is-at/

Thank you for your attention 

elisabeth.levin@hhu.de