Speech Accessibility Project

Description

The goal of the Speech Accessibility Project at the University of Illinois Beckman Institute (https://speechaccessibilityproject.beckman.illinois.edu) is to collect, annotate, and curate a shared database of speech samples from people with atypical speech, and share this data set with researchers at other organizations. This two-year project plans to collect 1,200,000 speech samples from 2,000 people, each of whom will provide 600 samples. In Year 1, the initial focus will be people with Parkinson's. In Year 2, four more etiologies of interest will be recruited: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Cerebral Palsy (CP), Down Syndrome (DS), and Stroke. UIUC will build an open-source software infrastructure to collect annotated speech samples and share these data in an appropriately secure fashion with researchers from our partner technology companies (and eventually, other organizations as well) so that they can use these data to improve their automatic speech recognition algorithms. This project promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion by helping technology companies to fully support all types of speech, and it is also more efficient and less burdensome for these specialized patient populations to have one centralized "collector" of speech samples.

Conditions

Parkinson Disease, Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, Multiple System Atrophy, Dementia With Lewy Bodies

Study Overview

Study Details

Study overview

The goal of the Speech Accessibility Project at the University of Illinois Beckman Institute (https://speechaccessibilityproject.beckman.illinois.edu) is to collect, annotate, and curate a shared database of speech samples from people with atypical speech, and share this data set with researchers at other organizations. This two-year project plans to collect 1,200,000 speech samples from 2,000 people, each of whom will provide 600 samples. In Year 1, the initial focus will be people with Parkinson's. In Year 2, four more etiologies of interest will be recruited: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Cerebral Palsy (CP), Down Syndrome (DS), and Stroke. UIUC will build an open-source software infrastructure to collect annotated speech samples and share these data in an appropriately secure fashion with researchers from our partner technology companies (and eventually, other organizations as well) so that they can use these data to improve their automatic speech recognition algorithms. This project promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion by helping technology companies to fully support all types of speech, and it is also more efficient and less burdensome for these specialized patient populations to have one centralized "collector" of speech samples.

People With Speech Disabilities Contributing Speech Samples for Improved Accessibility of Speech-Enabled Devices

Speech Accessibility Project

Condition
Parkinson Disease
Intervention / Treatment

-

Contacts and Locations

Denver

LSVT Global, Denver, Colorado, United States, 80204

Urbana

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, United States, 61801

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

For general information about clinical research, read Learn About Studies.

Eligibility Criteria

  • * Adult (age \>= 18 years)
  • * Self-reported diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease, ALS, CP, DS, or Stroke
  • * Reads and speaks English in the form of complete sentences
  • * Has a valid email address
  • * Ability to access web browser to participate in study
  • * Is a resident of the State of Washington, Texas, or Illinois (because these states have privacy laws that would not allow us to collect 'voice prints')
  • * If quality control screening of initial speech samples "fails" because of poor data quality (e.g., poor quality recording environment, or person's speech is "too typical" and not sufficiently interesting to continue collecting)

Ages Eligible for Study

18 Years to

Sexes Eligible for Study

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Collaborators and Investigators

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,

Mark A Hasegawa-Johnson, Ph.D., PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Study Record Dates

2024-05-31