6 research outputs found
A cross-lingual adaptation approach for rapid development of speech recognizers for learning disabled users
Building a voice-operated system for learning disabled users is a difficult task that requires a considerable amount of time and effort. Due to the wide spectrum of disabilities and their different related phonopathies, most approaches available are targeted to a specific pathology. This may improve their accuracy for some users, but makes them unsuitable for others. In this paper, we present a cross-lingual approach to adapt a general-purpose modular speech recognizer for learning disabled people. The main advantage of this approach is that it allows rapid and cost-effective development by taking the already built speech recognition engine and its modules, and utilizing existing resources for standard speech in different languages for the recognition of the users’ atypical voices. Although the recognizers built with the proposed technique obtain lower accuracy rates than those trained for specific pathologies, they can be used by a wide population and developed more rapidly, which makes it possible to design various types of speech-based applications accessible to learning disabled users.This research was supported by the project ‘Favoreciendo la vida autónoma de discapacitados intelectuales con problemas de comunicación oral mediante interfaces personalizados de reconocimiento automático del habla’, financed by the Centre of Initiatives for Development Cooperation (Centro de Iniciativas de Cooperación al Desarrollo, CICODE), University of Granada, Spain. This research was supported by the Student Grant Scheme 2014 (SGS) at the Technical University of Liberec