We are pleased to announce the first call for papers for the fourth Workshop on Speech and Language Processing for Assistive Technologies (SLPAT), to be co-located with Interspeech 2013 in Grenoble in August, 2013. The deadline for submission of papers and demo proposals is 17 May and 31 May, respectively. Full details on the workshop, topics of interest, timeline and formatting of regular papers is here:

       http://slpat.org/slpat2013

This 2-day workshop will bring together researchers from all areas of speech and language technology with a common interest in making everyday life more accessible for people with physical, cognitive, sensory, emotional, or developmental disabilities. This workshop will provide an opportunity for individuals from both research communities, and the individuals with whom they are working, to assist to share research findings, and to discuss present and future challenges and the potential for collaboration and progress. General topics include but are not limited to:

                • Automated processing of sign language

                • Speech synthesis and speech recognition for physical or cognitive impairments

                • Speech transformation for improved intelligibility

                • Speech and Language Technologies for Assisted Living

                • Translation systems; to and from speech, text, symbols and sign language

                • Novel modeling and machine learning approaches for AAC/AT applications

                • Text processing for improved comprehension, e.g., sentence simplification or text-to-speech

                • Silent speech: speech technology based on sensors without audio

                • Symbol languages, sign languages, nonverbal communication

                • Dialogue systems and natural language generation for assistive technologies

                • Multimodal user interfaces and dialogue systems adapted to assistive technologies

                • NLP for cognitive assistance applications

                • Presentation of graphical information for people with visual impairments

                • Speech and NLP applied to typing interface applications

                • Brain-computer interfaces for language processing applications

                • Speech, natural language and multimodal interfaces to assistive technologies

                • Assessment of speech and language processing within the context of assistive technology

                • Web accessibility; text simplification, summarization, and adapted presentation modes such as speech, signs or symbols

                • Deployment of speech and NLP tools in the clinic or in the field

                • Linguistic resources; corpora and annotation schemes

                • Evaluation of systems and components, including methodology

                • Anything included in this year's special topic

                • Other topics in Augmentative and Alternative Communication

This year we are introducing a special topic, which is Smart Homes and ambient intelligent technology applied to augmentative communication. Relevant research topics would include (but are not limited to):

                • Automatic Speech recognition in multi-source environments

                • Distant speech recognition

                • Understanding, modelling or recognition of aged speech

                • Speech analysis in the case of elderly with impairments, early recognition of speech capability loss

                • Assistive speech technology

                • Multimodal speech recognition (context-aware ASR)

                • Multimodal emotion recognition

                • Audio scene and smart home context analysis

                • Applications of speech technology (ASR, dialogue, synthesis) for ambient assisted living

Please contact the conference organizers at slpat2013.workshop@gmail.com with any questions.