A cross-lingual adaptation approach for rapid development of speech recognizers for learning disabled users Bohac, Marek Kucharova, Michaela Callejas Carrión, Zoraida Nouza, Jan Červa, Petr Automatic speech recognition Cross-lingual adaptation Assistive technology Speech technology Atypical voices Learning disabled Intellectual disability Dysarthria Building a voice-operated system for learning disabled users is a difficult task that requires a considerable amount of time and effort. Due to the wide spectrum of disabilities and their different related phonopathies, most approaches available are targeted to a specific pathology. This may improve their accuracy for some users, but makes them unsuitable for others. In this paper, we present a cross-lingual approach to adapt a general-purpose modular speech recognizer for learning disabled people. The main advantage of this approach is that it allows rapid and cost-effective development by taking the already built speech recognition engine and its modules, and utilizing existing resources for standard speech in different languages for the recognition of the users’ atypical voices. Although the recognizers built with the proposed technique obtain lower accuracy rates than those trained for specific pathologies, they can be used by a wide population and developed more rapidly, which makes it possible to design various types of speech-based applications accessible to learning disabled users. 2015-02-17T11:27:52Z 2015-02-17T11:27:52Z 2014 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Bohac, M.; et al. A cross-lingual adaptation approach for rapid development of speech recognizers for learning disabled users. EURASIP, 2014: 39 (2014). [http://hdl.handle.net/10481/34837] 1687-4722 http://hdl.handle.net/10481/34837 10.1186/s13636-014-0039-0 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License Springer Open