Virtual Home Assistants for People with Dysarthria

Many individuals with disabilities use virtual home assistants (VHAs) to communicate and execute daily tasks (Pradhan, Mehta & Findlater 2018). Because VHAs are controlled by verbal communication, some groups of users, including people with speech impairments, face barriers to effective interaction with VHAs. My research addresses the problems that individuals with speech impairments, specifically those with dysarthria, experience in interacting with these devices. I propose an alternate technique for interaction using nonverbal voice cues, such as humming, hissing and vowel sounds. The technique requires from the user only the ability to vocalise.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Aisha Jaddoh

Conference

Publication date: July 2020

Publication date (Print): July 2020

Pages: 62-63

Affiliations

[0001]Cardiff University

School of Computer Science and Informatics

Cardiff, UK

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/HCI20DC.15

SO-VID: 8c9ac274-f5f5-41e3-83a3-2903eb0a7b8a

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Proceedings of the 33rd International BCS Human Computer Interaction Conference

Conference acronym: BCS HCI 2020

Conference number: 33

Conference location: Keele University, UK

Conference date: 6 July 2020

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Human Computer Interaction

History

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1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/HCI20DC.15

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

BM AnselRD Kent 1992 Acoustic-phonetic contrasts and intelligibility in the dysarthria associated with mixed cerebral palsy Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 35 2 296 308
Apple n.d., The new sound of home viewed 21 May 2020 https://www.apple.com/uk/homepod/
F BallatiF CornoL De Russis 2018 Hey Siri, do you understand me?’ Virtual assistants and dysarthria Intelligent Environments (Workshops) 557 66
F BallatiF CornoL De Russis 2018 Assessing virtual assistant capabilities with Italian dysarthric speech Proceedings of the 20th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility 93 101
M Black 2019 What is Amazon Echo? A complete guide, viewed 21 May 2020 https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/news/audio/amazonecho-3584881/
L De RussisF Corno 2019 On the impact of dysarthric speech on contemporary ASR cloud platforms Journal of Reliable Intelligent Environments 5 3 163 72
Google n.d., Meet Google Home viewed 21 May 2020 https://store.google.com/gb/product/google_home_speaker
RD KentG WeismerJF KentHK VorperianJR Duffy 1999 Acoustic studies of dysarthric speech: methods, progress, and potential Journal of Communication Disorders 32 3 141 86
M.B. MustafaF. RosdiS.S. SalimM.U. Mughal 2015 Exploring the influence of general and specific factors on the recognition accuracy of an ASR system for dysarthric speaker Expert Systems with Applications 42 8 3924 3932
A PradhanK MehtaL Findlater 2018 Accessibility came by accident’: use of voice-controlled intelligent personal assistants by people with disabilities Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1 13
V YoungA Mihailidis 2010 Difficulties in automatic speech recognition of dysarthric speakers and implications for speech-based applications used by the elderly: a literature review Assistive Technology 22 2 99 112

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Comment on this article

[1] BM AnselRD Kent 1992 Acoustic-phonetic contrasts and intelligibility in the dysarthria associated with mixed cerebral palsy Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 35 2 296 308

[2] Apple n.d., The new sound of home viewed 21 May 2020 https://www.apple.com/uk/homepod/

[3] F BallatiF CornoL De Russis 2018 Hey Siri, do you understand me?’ Virtual assistants and dysarthria Intelligent Environments (Workshops) 557 66

[4] F BallatiF CornoL De Russis 2018 Assessing virtual assistant capabilities with Italian dysarthric speech Proceedings of the 20th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility 93 101

[5] M Black 2019 What is Amazon Echo? A complete guide, viewed 21 May 2020 https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/news/audio/amazonecho-3584881/

[6] L De RussisF Corno 2019 On the impact of dysarthric speech on contemporary ASR cloud platforms Journal of Reliable Intelligent Environments 5 3 163 72

[7] Google n.d., Meet Google Home viewed 21 May 2020 https://store.google.com/gb/product/google_home_speaker

[8] RD KentG WeismerJF KentHK VorperianJR Duffy 1999 Acoustic studies of dysarthric speech: methods, progress, and potential Journal of Communication Disorders 32 3 141 86

[9] M.B. MustafaF. RosdiS.S. SalimM.U. Mughal 2015 Exploring the influence of general and specific factors on the recognition accuracy of an ASR system for dysarthric speaker Expert Systems with Applications 42 8 3924 3932

[10] A PradhanK MehtaL Findlater 2018 Accessibility came by accident’: use of voice-controlled intelligent personal assistants by people with disabilities Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1 13

[11] V YoungA Mihailidis 2010 Difficulties in automatic speech recognition of dysarthric speakers and implications for speech-based applications used by the elderly: a literature review Assistive Technology 22 2 99 112

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