AI for Communication Disorders

The Newcastle University team hosted a two-day meeting and workshop of the Enabling Voices — AI tools for Communicative Disorders research network, funded by Stiftelsen Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (Sweden). Visiting members included Gitte Rasmussen and Elisabeth Muth Andersen (University of Southern Denmark), Sophia Lindeberg (Linköping University), and Christina Samuelsson, Elias Ingebrand and Ali Reza Majlesi (Karolinska Institut). Industry guests included Nikoletta Ventoura (Tesco) and Angus Adlessee (Amazon Alexa); Newcastle colleagues Huizhi Liang and James Stanfield (ECLS) also took part.

The workshop promoted Newcastle as a node in a North European research network exploring how AI tools can support people living with acquired communication disabilities — a strand of the Interactional AI team’s work that is conceptually and methodologically continuous with the clinical CUI design research, but is oriented toward a population whose interactional needs are routinely under-served by mass-market voice assistants. The presence of conversation design practitioners from Tesco and Amazon Alexa signals direct industry relevance.