Speech Recognition Technology for Disabilities Education

Speech recognition is an alternative to traditional methods of interacting with a computer, such as textual input through a keyboard. An effective system can replace or reduce the reliability on standard keyboard and mouse input. This can especially assist dyslexic students who have problems with character or word use and manipulation in a textual form; and students with physical disabilities that affect their data entry or ability to read, and therefore to check, what they have entered. In this article, we summarize the current state of available speech recognition technologies and describe a student project that integrates speech recognition technologies with Personal Digital Assistants to provide a cost-effective and portable health monitoring system for people with disabilities. We are hopeful that this project may inspire more student-led projects for disabilities education.