Speech technology: a solution for people with disabilities

The paper describes initial experiences gathered in the SCRIBE project, which involves, among other activities, training people with disabilities to use a commercially available speech software package (Philips FreeSpeech 2000). The trainees are students at the University of Ulster and adults in the community. The paper reports on a number of issues, including: characteristics of trainees and suitability of the software for use by people with particular types of disability; benefits of the software and of the training programme for users with disabilities; research and development issues arising from the project. Our experience to date has shown that there are a wide variety of needs to be addressed among potential users of speech software. Different needs have to be considered for trainees with dyslexia, for those with visual impairment, for others with hearing impairment, and for those who have physical disabilities. Some general patterns are emerging. Concerning the benefits of the training, qualitative results based on feedback from trainees indicate increased independence, high quality document creation, and pain reduction as a result of being able to use speech software. Finally, there are several issues that have arisen from the project that concern future research and development work, such as: the need for specialist training texts for trainees with dyslexia and for blind users; the use of speech software in an examination setting; the combination of other assistive software with dictation software; and the development of a completely hands-free solution. Future work includes the development of tailored solutions for individual users and of training packages designed to meet the needs of particular user groups