Speaking Beyond Personal Handicaps

Consider Phil, Tristan, and Lauren...: "A strong case can be made that the universal use of speech recognition began with a small number of people with physical handicaps who pioneered the road ahead for the rest of us to follow."

By Karl Barksdale, Darcy McKnight, and Nancy Zeliff ©2001

Some people have a knack for turning problems into leadership opportunities. A strong case can be made that the universal use of speech recognition began with a small number of people with physical handicaps who pioneered the road ahead for the rest of us to follow.

Consider Phil, Tristan, and Lauren.

They have never met and live thousands of miles apart. For each of them, typing was an insurmountable struggle. All three live with cerebral palsy (CP). CP often makes an arm or hand useless for common tasks like typing. For these three speech pioneers, typing was limited to one hand.

Perhaps because of this uncompromising limitation, each was inspired to try speech recognition long before the technology became well known or universally popular. CP was hampering their ability to compete in computer class compared with their two-handed typing peers. For the trio, the inability to type competitively could have created an obstacle academically or in their future careers.

That is, of course, until speech recognition made each of them the fastest typists in their schools.

Phillip (from Utah) began his odyssey with speech recognition in 1997. After some practice, his teacher recognized that Phil had gone from one of the very slowest, to the fastest typist by learning to use his voice. Sensing that other teachers wouldn't believe it, a head-to-head competition was organized placing Phil against the fastest two-handed typist their school had produced that year.

A classroom full of students gathered to watch the competition. The clock was started and the race began. A minute later, the bell sounded and the contest was over. Phil won hands down with an impressive 140+ words per minute, doubling the output of his top-notch, two-handed competitor. And Phil made fewer errors.

At that moment, Phil's teacher realized that speech recognition was no longer just a special accommodation for a student with CP, but a technology that every student must learn in order to be competitive in the workforce and in college. Since then, over 950 students have followed Phil's footsteps at his old school, learning from many of the same exercises, drills, and practice activities that Phil pioneered. His teacher later said, "Phil's typing 'handicap' was more than erased, in fact, it was obliterated. He paved the way for all of us to learn a better way of writing with a computer."

Phil is not alone as a speech pioneer. Tristan (from Washington State) is also limited to one-handed typing by cerebral palsy. His teacher reported the following,

"I put [Tristan] on the voice book and he just finished it. He is consistently inputting at a speed of 90-100 words per minute, even with a bit of a speech problem. He is so good at the commands now and is about to start doing all of the required typing assignments for the semester using strictly voice. It is a great success and just shows the power and usefulness of speech recognition."

A short time later, Tristan's teacher sent this update:

"Tristan gave a presentation at our vocational dinner last night. Using my laptop, which he has only been training on for a few days, he did the Benjamin Franklin/Thomas Jefferson demonstration, turned some of it red, bolded some of it and totally wowed the audience. I told them of his working nearly twice as fast as the other students, making him a challenge, but not in the way they might anticipate (I just have to come up with twice as much work for him!). He now presents in some of my training sessions with me as a demonstrator of the software and its practical applications. His mom spoke a few words as well and nearly cried when she told of how this has impacted his life and what she sees for his future."

Lauren (from Missouri) learned speech recognition with two 4-H buddies. According to her mother:

"All three girls are 14 years old, soon to be 9th graders. My daughter doesn't use her right hand due to Cerebral Palsy, so we were anxious to use Speech Recognition at home.

"My daughter also has speech and reading difficulties--so her enrollment took longer as we read 2 scripts and I coached her as she spoke... Lauren kept at it. She also wears braces. All she was getting was ^$4&678#$ for a long time and then 'bingo' she said 'Mom, it's working!'

"I really see this as helping her enunciation and word endings that often blur together right now.

"For a 4-H project, she conducted a 'working demonstration.' She also completed a project book on speech recognition for the Missouri State Fair. Catherine, her friend, also made a project book for the Fair. Josie, the third friend, asked if she could try speech recognition with MSN Messenger. That brightened up all three and they all had it going for about an hour--they were 'chatting' their chat. It was great seeing the innovation and what sparked their interest. It's been fun!"

All of us who come later to speech recognition owe a debt of gratitude to these pioneers who showed us all what can be done with a little determination, solid speech technologies, and a driving reason to become leaders in the information age. Phillip, Tristan, and Lauren paved the road ahead and showed us all a better way of working with computers.

All we need to do is to follow their lead.