How People Living With Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Use Personalized Automatic Speech Recognition Technology to Support Communication

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive, ultimately fatal disease causing progressive muscular weakness. Most people living with ALS (plwALS) experience dysarthria, eventually becoming unable to communicate using natural speech. Many wish to use speech for as long as possible. Personalized automated speech recognition (ASR) model technology, such as Google's Project Relate, is argued to better recognize speech with dysarthria, supporting maintenance of understanding through real-time captioning. The objectives of this study are how plwALS and communication partners use Relate in everyday conversation over a period of up to 12 months and how it may change with any decline in speech over time.