Speech Recognition for Americans with Disabilities
Adapt . . . Overcome!

Many Americans with Injuries or Disabilities have looked to speech recognition to help them overcome their problems. Naturally, the first question asked is "Will this work?".  In many situations, the answer is yes! 

Minor Medical Disabilities

Voice recognition, as provided by IBM's ViaVoice line of speech recognition software, can prove invaluable to those who have minor disabilities that would normally limit or keep them from using a computer keyboard. By using your voice to speak naturally to the computer to dictate your documents and automate programs, an individual can remain productive in a PC oriented environment.

For instance, individuals with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (Repetitive Stress Injuries) or other injuries that make it difficult or impossible to use their hands on the computer keyboard may find relief with ViaVoice.

Major Disabilities or Handicaps

Crown has had a lot of experience working with physically disabled or handicapped individuals that need the ability to work and interact with a computer. IBM's ViaVoice is the perfect solution for a great range of major disabilities or handicaps in that it makes many functions of the computer "hands free" yet still fully interactive and accurate in daily use. Dictation, navigation and program manipulation, etc... are all functions that ViaVoice can provide to pc user's with physical limitations that keep them from being able to type normally.

Recently, crown has worked with individuals who have had full or partial paralysis, permanent degenerative medical conditions, or birth defects that ordinarily would limit their ability to work in an environment that normally requires interaction and use with a computer.

A.    One client is an author who writes popular romance novels. She has a medical condition that makes it extremely painful for her to do anything with her hands. She is now using ViaVoice to dictate her novels. She also uses the navigation features of ViaVoice to surf the Internet and send and receive e-mail. The voice mouse feature allows her to control her mouse with just her voice.

B.    A key programmer with a major aerospace manufacturer responsible for programming and maintaining accounting software was injured severely in an accident. Finding himself confined to a wheelchair with only partial use of one hand, he was very limited in ability to work with his programming tools. Crown was contacted and was able to return nearly full productivity to this important employee through a custom boom mounted microphone and ViaVoice speech recognition software.

C.    Another special needs client is a major department store chain with many stores in the Los Angeles area. They were in the process of promoting an employee to a buyer's position who had been born with no arms; while he was able to use a computer by typing with his toes, they wanted to make it easier for him as the amount of computer use would go up with the new position. After completing training on ViaVoice, (and naturally quite a bit of practice) he was able to dictate text into his computer and control most functions of his computer using only his voice. Crown was even able teach him to use  Terminal Emulation in his PC to control the company Main Frame computer with his voice as part of his day to day duties.

D.    A professor at a Major U.S. University developed cancerous tumors in her hand that required amputation of some fingers. As a researcher, her job required that she produce a high volume of typed reports. After Crown International trained her in the use of ViaVoice, she was able to overcome this disability and return to productivity.

Over the past 10 years we have learned where the use of ViaVoice in a PC can work. We also have seen a number of conditions where speech recognition is not the answer. 

If you are covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act in the private sector or under Section 508 as a federal employee, Crown International can assist you with the products and training you will need to be successful.  Many times state agencies or insurance companies can also help clients with this.  Crown International has provided Section 508 training for the Department of Defense TRICARE (CAP) program.

We have also worked with several school districts around the country to provide for special needs students. Particularly in the area of physical handicaps and dyslexia, teachers have been very successful using ViaVoice with their students. 

Call 800-715-4227 for More Information