Voiceitt’s technology learns to recognize a user’s unique speech patterns, including elements such as breathing pauses and non-verbal sounds, and interpret them into intelligible speech or text in real-time. Its first product is a mobile app, free in the App Store, that is tailored to the speaker and works in any language. Voiceitt also enables a range of spontaneous interactions and independence in users’ daily lives, from implementing specialized vocabulary that fits a professional environment to inputting a coffee order.
Dysarthric speech is unintelligible or unnatural flow of speech commonly caused by motor, speech, and language disorders that affect the body’s resources responsible for producing speech, such as the tongue and vocal cords. There are several patterns of dysarthric speech, although characteristics differ from person to person. People with dysarthric speech can use alternative and augmented communication methods like switches and communication boards, but these solutions are not optimal as the process is repetitive, too slow to preserve the natural flow of conversation, and limits the user's communication to predetermined content. In neuromuscular conditions, many people with dysarthric speech also have severely limited mobility, requiring 24-hour care for everything from wheelchair transfers to turning lights on and off. While virtual assistants and voice recognition technologies could offer hope of independence by activating connected devices to bridge the physical gap, these solutions are notoriously intolerant of any atypical speech. As there is no “typical” pattern of dysarthric speech, current algorithms cannot simply be taught to be more inclusive.
Voiceitt has been integrated with Amazon’s Alexa smart home virtual assistant, enabling people with a wider range of physical abilities to use connected devices to control their environment through voice activation. The algorithm adapts commands to the user’s ability and learns to recognize when the wake-word is spoken, even if it does not sound coherent or even similar to “Alexa.” This eases the burden on families and care teams by empowering the user with the tools to independently perform numerous tasks using the same voice that previously constituted a barrier to communication and source of frustration. This flexibility also means that Alexa can be used by speakers with any accent and in any language, even those not yet supported by Alexa, making virtual assistants more accessible to people across the globe with both atypical and typical speech. In 2022, Voiceitt released an exclusive beta version of its next-generation continuous speech functionality. Utilizing an enhanced algorithm enabled by the submission of thousands of user recordings to vastly expand its database, it enables the spontaneous composition of messages and documents.