Stuttering: in focus at last

Stuttering is an often-overlooked aspect of accessibility in legislation and standards. This is despite the fact that as many as one per cent of the population stutters, and that more and more digital services and products are based on voice control.

For the past three years, the Swedish Stuttering Association has been running a project funded by the Swedish Inheritance Fund on digital services and products that require speech.

Not being able to reach important services and not being able to use speech-controlled devices and apps is not only a lack of inclusion, participation, equality, independence and security, but also violates the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The project ‘Speech as a digital tool’ has investigated communication products and services that require speech, mapped and tested the difficulties experienced by people with stuttering, slurred speech and other speech disorders, and validated the results with users, speech therapists, procurers and suppliers.

The goal is to make products and services that require speech more accessible to the target group and, at the same time, to increase society’s awareness of stuttering. Since many people have similar problems with voice control, such as people with hearing impairment or deafness, people with a prominent dialect or who is not a native speaker, the project’s results are beneficial to large groups of users even outside the specific target group.

The Funka Foundation has contributed to the project with, among other things, film production, analysis of test results, development of checklists. The result of the project is presented – in Swedish – at the final conference on 2 October in Stockholm.

About the final conference, in Swedish