Literature Reviews

Reviewed research papers, articles, and publications relevant to digital accessibility.

• Supporting Older Adults in Locating Mobile Interface Features with Voice Input

  Ja Eun Yu, Debaleena Chattopadhyay (2020) — Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2020)

  This demonstration paper presents a voice assistant system built on Android that helps older adults locate specific features on complex mobile interfaces by speaking natural language queries. The system addresses a well-documented challenge: older ad…

  • aging
  • mobile accessibility
  • voice interface
  • user interface design
  • assistive technology
  • speech recognition
  • usability

• Exploring Smart Speaker User Experience for People Who Stammer

  Anna Bleakley, Daniel Rough, Abi Roper, Stephen Lindsay, Martin Porcheron, Minha Lee, Stuart Alan Nicholson, Benjamin R. Cowan, Leigh Clark (2022) — Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '22)

  This paper investigates how people who stammer experience smart speakers in their daily lives over a three-week period. The researchers deployed Google Nest devices in the homes of 11 participants (mean age 33, recruited through the STAMMA charity in…

  • stammering
  • stuttering
  • speech disfluency
  • smart speakers
  • voice interface
  • speech recognition
  • conversational user interface
  • user experience
  • diary study
  • speech and language therapy

• "I stepped into a puddle": Non-Visual Texting in Nomadic Contexts

  Pegah Karimi, Erin Brady, Aqueasha Martin-Hammond, Davide Bolchini (2023) — Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A '23)

  This study investigates the under-explored practice of texting by people who are blind and visually impaired (BVI) while navigating outdoors — what the authors term "nomadic contexts." While previous research has examined accessible text entry method…

  • blind and low vision
  • text entry
  • mobile accessibility
  • navigation
  • assistive technology
  • touchscreen accessibility
  • VoiceOver
  • speech recognition
  • situational awareness
  • public transportation
  • independent living

• Early Diagnosis of Autism through Analysis of Pre-Speech Vocalizations

  Keshi Dai (2007) — SIGACCESS Accessibility and Computing

  This paper proposes an approach for early diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by computationally analyzing the pre-speech vocalizations of infants aged 6 to 18 months. The author notes that while autism can be reliably diagnosed by age 3, and…

  • autism spectrum disorder
  • early diagnosis
  • speech recognition
  • pre-speech vocalization
  • early intervention
  • assistive technology

• Making Emergency Calls More Accessible to Older Adults Through a Hands-free Speech Interface in the House

  Michel Vacher, Frédéric Aman, Solange Rossato, François Portet, Benjamin Lecouteux (2019) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS)

  This paper presents CirdoX, a hands-free voice user interface system designed to detect emergency calls for help from older adults living alone at home. Wearable personal emergency response (PER) systems — typically pendant buttons worn on the neck o…

  • speech recognition
  • aging
  • emergency response
  • ambient assisted living
  • smart home
  • voice user interface
  • older adults
  • hands-free interaction
  • fall detection

• Toward Fairness in AI for People with Disabilities: A Research Roadmap

  Anhong Guo, Ece Kamar, Jennifer Wortman Vaughan, Hanna Wallach, Meredith Ringel Morris (2020) — SIGACCESS Accessibility and Computing

  This position paper from Microsoft Research presents a systematic risk assessment of how major categories of AI systems may fail or discriminate against people with disabilities, proposing a four-point research roadmap for increasing AI fairness. The…

  • AI fairness
  • algorithmic bias
  • disability
  • computer vision
  • speech recognition
  • text processing
  • research roadmap
  • outlier detection
  • benchmark datasets

• Self-supervised learning using unlabeled speech with multiple types of speech disorder for disordered speech recognition

  Ryoichi Takashima, Takeru Otani, Ryo Aihara, Tetsuya Takiguchi, Shinya Taguchi (2024) — Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2024)

  This paper tackles a critical barrier in accessible speech technology: automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems perform poorly for people with speech disorders because they are trained almost exclusively on typical speech. The authors from Kobe Uni…

  • speech recognition
  • speech disorders
  • machine learning
  • self-supervised learning
  • assistive technology
  • cerebral palsy
  • dysarthria