Articles
Original articles on digital accessibility, research, and practice.
2 results found tagged speech recognition.
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Beyond Speech: What Research Reveals About Augmentative, Alternative, and Accessible Communication
AAC research is moving past the speech-generating device toward a richer understanding of how communication actually works. This article examines 81 papers spanning AAC devices, sign language technology, speech recognition for atypical speech, captioning, and aphasia — revealing that 92.3% of high-tech AAC supports only verbal communication, 67% of devices are abandoned because vocabulary does not match daily life, and the most valued communication tools augment rather than replace users existing strategies.
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Machine Learning and Digital Accessibility: What Works, What Fails, and What Gets Lost in Between
AI is simultaneously the most promising tool and the most documented source of harm in recent accessibility research. This article examines approximately 235 papers revealing where machine learning helps — captioning accuracy improved by 5.6%, web navigation 52% faster, audio description production halved — and where it fails: fabricating image descriptions, reproducing ableist stereotypes in career chatbots, homogenising personalised AAC tools, and systematically excluding anyone whose body or speech falls outside training data norms.