Speech

Speech Disability

Persona: Meena

Meena, 24, Syrian, lives with their parents. Managing a stutter that affects voice recognition tools, requiring reliable text-based alternatives for all interactions.

About This Condition

Stuttering, dysarthria, selective mutism, or other speech differences affect how reliably voice input is recognized. Interfaces that require spoken commands or voice verification as the only input path exclude anyone whose speech pattern falls outside the model's training data.

Digital Challenges

Voice authentication, speech-only input fields, and AI assistants that fail on non-standard speech patterns all create barriers. People with speech disabilities need text-based and keyboard alternatives for every voice-dependent interaction, without those alternatives being buried or harder to find.

Assistive Technologies

  • AAC devices
  • keyboard navigation
  • text-based input alternatives

Design Considerations

Provide a text or keyboard alternative for every voice-triggered interaction at equal visual prominence. Never use voice recognition as the sole authentication method. Ensure all voice features fail gracefully with an immediate non-voice fallback.

Clinical Examples

Stuttering, dysarthria, apraxia of speech, selective mutism, spasmodic dysphonia