Literature Reviews

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

• Challenges in Automatic Speech Recognition for Adults with Cognitive Impairment

  Michelle Cohn, Alyssa Lanzi, Yui Ishihara, Chen-Nee Chuah, Georgia Zellou, Alyssa Weakley (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This CHI 2026 paper quantifies how well state-of-the-art automatic speech recognition (ASR) handles voice commands produced by older adults with cognitive impairment, and asks which acoustic features actually predict transcription accuracy. The autho…

  • automatic speech recognition
  • ASR
  • dementia
  • Alzheimer's disease
  • mild cognitive impairment
  • AgeTech
  • voice assistant
  • Amazon Alexa
  • Whisper
  • aging in place
  • ability-based design
  • acoustic analysis
  • word error rate
  • smart home
  • human-in-the-loop

• The EasyCog Dataset: Towards Easier Cognitive Assessment with Passive Video Watching

  Qingyong Hu, Yuxuan Zhou, Jinjian Wang, Yanbin Gong, Yizhen Zhang, Jingnan Sun, Jian Yao, Qijia Shao, Lili Qiu, Qian Zhang, Guihua Li (2026) — Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies

  This paper introduces EasyCog, the first large-scale multimodal dataset designed for low-burden, low-cost cognitive assessment using passive visual engagement. The core motivation is to address well-documented limitations of standard clinical cogniti…

  • cognitive accessibility
  • cognitive assessment
  • EEG
  • eye tracking
  • dementia
  • aging
  • Alzheimer's disease
  • Parkinson's disease
  • wearable technology
  • assistive technology
  • machine learning
  • multimodal

• WADER: a novel wayfinding system with deviation recovery for individuals with cognitive impairments

  Shih-Kai Tsai (2007) — Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '07)

  This short ASSETS 2007 poster paper from Shih-Kai Tsai at Chung Yuan Christian University in Taiwan presents WADER (Wayfinding system with DEviation Recovery), a prototype indoor wayfinding system aimed at individuals with cognitive impairments — exp…

  • wayfinding
  • indoor navigation
  • QR code
  • cognitive accessibility
  • cognitive disabilities
  • traumatic brain injury
  • cerebral palsy
  • intellectual disability
  • schizophrenia
  • Alzheimer's disease
  • PDA
  • mobile accessibility
  • assistive technology
  • independent living
  • employment

• Providing Good Memory Cues for People with Episodic Memory Impairment

  Matthew L. Lee, Anind K. Dey (2007) — Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07)

  This paper from the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University presents two studies investigating how caregivers use cues to support episodic memory recollection in people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and what types of cues a…

  • dementia
  • Alzheimer's disease
  • episodic memory
  • lifelogging
  • memory cue
  • caregiver burden
  • aging
  • cognitive assistive technology
  • reminiscence

• Requirements Gathering with Alzheimer's Patients and Caregivers

  Kirstie Hawkey, Kori M. Inkpen, Kenneth Rockwood, Michael McAllister, Jacob Slonim (2005) — Proceedings of the 7th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '05)

  This paper presents a requirements gathering study for an information appliance designed to alleviate repetitive questioning behaviour in people with Alzheimer's disease (AD), a leading cause of caregiver stress. The interdisciplinary team from Dalho…

  • Alzheimer's disease
  • dementia
  • cognitive accessibility
  • assistive technology
  • user-centered design
  • caregiving
  • requirements gathering
  • information appliance
  • cognitive impairment
  • aging

• Automatically Identifying Trouble-Indicating Speech Behaviors in Alzheimer's Disease

  Frank Rudzicz, Leila Chan Currie, Andrew Danks, Tejas Mehta, Shunan Zhao (2014) — ASSETS '14: Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  This paper addresses the challenge of automatically detecting communication breakdowns in conversations with people who have Alzheimer's disease (AD). AD is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that deteriorates memory, executive capacity, visual-…

  • Alzheimer's disease
  • dementia
  • speech recognition
  • natural language processing
  • machine learning
  • cognitive accessibility
  • dialogue systems

• The Effect of Voice Output on AAC-Supported Conversations of Persons with Alzheimer's Disease

  Melanie Fried-Oken, Charity Rowland, Glory Baker, Mayling Dixon, Carolyn Mills, Darlene Schultz, Barry Oken (2009) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This study investigated whether digitized voice output on AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) devices would improve conversations for people with moderate Alzheimer's disease. The researchers hypothesized that voice output might function…

  • AAC
  • Alzheimer's disease
  • dementia
  • voice output
  • cognitive accessibility
  • aging
  • speech synthesis

• Speech Interaction with Personal Assistive Robots Supporting Aging at Home for Individuals with Alzheimer's Disease

  Frank Rudzicz, Rosalie Wang, Momotaz Begum, Alex Mihailidis (2015) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS)

  This study examines speech-based interaction between older adults with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and a mobile assistive robot called ED, designed to help with activities of daily living. The research addresses a critical healthcare challenge: many nat…

  • Alzheimer's disease
  • dementia
  • assistive robotics
  • speech recognition
  • aging in place
  • smart home
  • human-robot interaction
  • activities of daily living
  • older adults
  • cognitive accessibility