One key component of accessibility is automatic speech recognition (ASR), which can greatly improve the ability of those with speech impairments to interact with every-day smart devices. However, ASR systems are most often trained from ‘typical’ speech, which means that underrepresented groups, such as those with speech impairments or heavy accents, don’t experience the same degree of utility. To help people with speech impairments better interact with every-day smart devices, Google researchers have developed a deep learning-based automatic speech recognition (ASR) system that aims to improve communications for people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a disease that can affect a person’s speech. (Nvidia, Google)