Use of dictation software to teach speech and hearing-impaired

There are millions of deaf children in India. Visit Varshney S. Deafness in India. Indian J Otol, 2016; 22:73-6. http://www.indianjotol.org/text.asp?2016/22/2/73/182281

It is generally believed that those who are hearing-impaired need not be speech impaired. They  cannot hear themselves speak and cannot hear spoken responses from others they are talking to; so, they fail to get feedback on their own speech. This absence of feedback is considered the major factor in the hearing-impaired usually not learning to speak. This raises an interesting question: can we encourage students with this problem to speak into a cell phone running a dictation app to get useful feedback on how their speech is perceived by others? A cellphone with a suitable app is not automatically going to solve the problem. A capable teacher, at home or at school, would usually be important to teach the hearing-impaired to use the tool. Further, the learner should have a working knowledge of English.  The ability to learn more will depend upon the level of language skills at that time. So, we must expect that the side-by-side learning of English and use of this tool will be a process that will take months or years of sustained work. Trained teachers will of course speed up this learning a lot. Visit https://www.audiologyonline.com/articles/auditory-oral-education-teaching-deaf-1248

Dictation software of pretty good quality is available on devices such as iPhones and Android phones. I believe you can get cell phones costing less than Rs 4000 (less than USD 70), that can run dictation software. It would be valuable to choose a rugged phone which can stand a few drops, as a broken cell phone can often kill the user’s hope and enthusiasm. A display with a diagonal dimension of  4 inches or more would be useful for this application.

We have to recognise two advances: improvements in the performance of dictation software and wide availability of cell phones to run such software. Also significant is the availability of apps such as WhatsApp that take spoken text messages and send them off to other cell phone users. We empower the hearing-impaired when we give them the ability to send easily created text messages through their cell phones. This enables them to communicate with friends and family irrespective of distance, and without struggling to make a voice call.

The technology discussed above works equally well in enabling people to communicate to the hearing-impaired. The speaker can dictate into any cell phone what they want to say and show the text to the “listener”.

It is worth noting that the cost of the hardware involved is significantly less than that of a good-quality hearing aid, or the cost of a cochlear implant. This is not to argue against hearing aids which have their own value. We should visualise hearing-impaired students using hearing aids as well as cell phones equipped with speech recognition apps. They will complement each other, and together they would enable the users to cope with a whole variety of situations. It is worth noting that hearing aids do not completely solve the problem of poor hearing. Very often hearing-impaired students use affordable hearing aids which do not provide the necessary high quality of user experience. Complementing them with speech recognition apps on cell phones is a good way to to reduce the problems faced by the students, and to speed up their learning.

Can we use an Indian language in this context? I have only focused on English in this article, but Google Docs is able to cope with 40 different languages (as of March 2018), irrespective of your using it on a computer or on (an Android)  cell phone. The one Indian language included in this list of 40 is Hindi. However, I have not tried voice typing in Hindi with Google Docs. Any user interested in this should expect to spend some time learning relevant information and skills. Postings on the Web say that your Google Doc app should be up-to-date and that you should go to settings, then languages, and add Hindi. I am sure that good dictation software will become available in all major Indian languages over the years.  

Lastly, the most wide-spread use of dictation software in India would be among users with normal hearing who wish to improve the way they speak English.

Srinivasan Ramani