First Workshop on Speech and Language Processing for Assistive Technologies (SLPAT)

NAACL HLT 2010 Workshop
June 5, 2010, Los Angeles, CA

Assistive technology (AT) supports individuals with disabilities in participating in activities that would otherwise be difficult or impossible for them. An obvious and ubiquitous example is a wheelchair, which assists with mobility. AT follows the principles of universal design, permitting access by persons with and without disabilities to make tasks simpler and more intuitive, more flexible and equitable in use, with lower physical effort and higher tolerance for errors. An important and visible category within the AT community is known as Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), which is focused on multi-modal communication, including technologies for those who cannot rely on natural speech and/or writing as the primary means of expression. From providing access to web-based communication for individuals with severe motor impairments, to improving the intelligibility of output in speech generating devices, the range of AAC topics that could or should rely on speech and natural language processing (NLP) technologies is very large. Yet the number of individuals actively working within the two research communities – AT/AAC on the one hand and speech/NLP on the other – is relatively small. This workshop will bring individuals from both of these research communities together with AAC users to share research findings, and to discuss present and future challenges and the potential for collaboration and progress.

Important Dates

Paper submission deadline: March 1, 2010   (passed)
Notification to authors: March 30, 2010   (passed)
Demo proposal submission deadline: April 2, 2010   (passed)
Notification of demo acceptance: April 8, 2010   (passed)
Camera-ready paper version submission deadline: April 12, 2010   (passed)
Workshop: June 5, 2010

Organizers

• Melanie Fried-Oken (Oregon Health & Science University)
• Kathleen F. McCoy (University of Delaware)
• Brian Roark (Oregon Health & Science University)

Program Committee

• Norman Alm, University of Dundee
• Jean-Yves Antoine, Université François-Rabelais
• John Arnott, University of Dundee
• Bruce Baker, Semantic Compaction Systems
• Melanie Baljko, York University, Canada
• Jan Bedrosian, Western Michigan University
• Jeff Bilmes, University of Washington
• Tim Bunnell, University of Delaware
• Ann Copestake, University of Cambridge
• Alistair D.N. Edwards, University of York
• Michael Elhadad, Ben-Gurion University
• Leo Ferres, Universidad de Concepción, Chile, & Carleton University, Canada
• Jeff Higginbotham, University of Buffalo
• Graeme Hirst, University of Toronto
• Linda Hoag, Kansas State University
• Matt Huenerfauth, CUNY
• Alexander Kain, Oregon Health & Science University
• Heidi Koester, Koester Performance Research
• Richard E. Ladner, University of Washington
• Greg Lesher, Dynavox Technologies, Inc.
• Yael Netzer, Ben-Gurion University
• Alan Newell, University of Dundee
• Rupal Patel, Northeastern University
• Helen Petrie, University of York
• Ehud Reiter, University of Aberdeen
• Howard Shane, Children's Hospital Boston
• Fraser Shein, Bloorview Kids Rehab, Canada
• Kumiko Tanaka-Ishii, University of Tokyo
• Annalu Waller, University of Dundee
• Tonio Wandmacher, Commissariat á l'énergie atomique, France
• David Wilkins, Language and Linguistics Consulting, Australia

Contact

Please send inquiries to slpat2010.workshop@gmail.com.