Speech technologies for Serbian have been developed over the past decade and a half at the Faculty of Technical Sciences of the University of Novi Sad, in cooperation with the company “AlfaNum” from Novi Sad. These are the main reasons why many languages are still underresourced in this context. Collecting speech and language resources is a very time-consuming task, which requires domain knowledge. The algorithmic part of developing speech technologies is universal, while the resources are, naturally, language dependent and need to be acquired for each language.
Algorithms for both automatic speech recognition (ASR) and text-to-speech (TTS) are constantly being developed and refined, and new approaches are being defined in order to make speech technologies adaptable to different devices and acoustical environments. Speech technologies have achieved impressive quality for some languages over the past few decades. The final two sections provide a discussion about achieved results and an overview of the plans for further research. The following section covers the presentation of educational applications based on speech technologies along with the accomplished adaptations. Section 2 outlines the information on speech technologies developed for the Serbian language. The paper is divided into three main sections. The research concerning educational applications based on speech technologies for Serbian represents the initial results in automatic game adaptation to user's needs in line with techniques and methods used in artificial intelligence domain. It is a serious challenge to generate or adapt games to the needs of the disabled since the experience acquired by the player during gameplay varies from game to game and from person to person. During their adaptation, the focus has been on the creation and processing of information in audio form in order to produce right and timely interaction. These applications can thus be classified as audio games. In this paper, several realizations of computer educational applications that use speech technology for desired interaction with visually impaired pupils are presented. Among computer games aimed at the blind, the most common are those that rely on hearing, followed by those relying on touch, while, in the last couple of years, haptic devices have also been gaining popularity. For example, games such as action games and adventure games usually require active usage of the eyesight of the player, and as a result, games of this type are scarcely available for the visually impaired. Each of the two basic solutions has its own restrictions, and it is not possible to reach the desired level of playability in different computer games while they remain solely audio or solely tactile.
Namely, computer games for the mentioned population can be roughly divided, regarding the primary sense that they engage, into audio and tactile computer games, as well as games designed as a combination of the two basic models. Īn appropriate level of playability of computer games for blind children has been achieved by alternative representation of a graphical user interface (GUI). With educational games, high effectiveness is the ultimate goal, because it represents the measure of a game's ability to enhance knowledge acquisition and ability development in every individual. With the disabled, playability mainly depends on to what extent the game is adapted to the user's ergonomic characteristics. Usability is directed towards functionality within the game system, while playability is directed towards the functionality of the system as a whole, and for that reason designers of games aimed at the disabled claim playability to be more important. As is the case with all computer games, it is necessary to achieve the required level of usability, playability, and effectiveness. If the ergonomic characteristics of the target population are taken into account during the development of computer games, as well as their specific pedagogical and psychological needs, then a game becomes an instrument for the education and therapy of people with disabilities. Computer games have proved to be a valuable tool for certain educational purposes, especially when bearing in mind their ubiquity in the lives of children and the young.
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