A Survey of Speech Recognition for People with Cerebral Palsy

Abstract

This study aims to address the communication barriers related to speech for individuals with cerebral palsy, with the goal of using technological methods to assist or alleviate difficulties in oral communication. To achieve this, the study plans to analyze and test mainstream speech recognition services or platforms available in the market to understand their current speech recognition capabilities for individuals with cerebral palsy, and explore the possibility of assisting them in solving their communication problems, in order to enhance their quality of life and promote their social skills. As the author is a person with congenital cerebral palsy, the study is particularly meaningful to him because the congenital brain damage affecting the nervous system has made his speech unclear, seriously affecting his ability to express himself orally. Therefore, the author plans to record a dataset of speech samples from individuals with cerebral palsy, collecting conversations from various aspects of daily life. This dataset will be tested and analyzed using mainstream speech recognition services such as Google, Microsoft, and YaTing, among others, in order to infer the current difficulties in speech recognition technology for individuals with cerebral palsy and propose potential solutions for oral communication barriers, with the hope that the contribution of this research will promote the development of mature assistive technologies for individuals with communication difficulties in the near future.