AlterEgo as a speech interface for ALS patients

Abstract

AlterEgo is a wearable, silent-speech device that is able to detect what word a user is attempting to say without discernible movement of the face or mouth. At it's current stage, the device can handle a vocabulary of about 10 words and this is enough to create usable applications for patients with speech impediments or speech loss. After thoroughly testing across a series of conditions with multiple patients per condition, we have found ALS to be the best suited condition for our system and a quick & urgent communication device to be its best application for this population. We present AlterEgo as a real-time, speech assistive technology and have made modifications so that ALS patients can effectively and independently use the device.