Supporting Speech Therapies at (Smart) Home Through Voice Assistance

Nowadays, homes are much more than just a place to live. Pervasive technology is slowly changing people’s lives as well as their way of living, supporting them in daily activities. This wind of change is also touching homes which are becoming more and more “smart”, automating at a glance users’ routine. Voice assistant devices are able to connect and control many actuators that are spread all over the house network so that the user can easily control them with the voice. In this article we want to propose a new way to exploit the Smart Home technology, exploring a new dimension to assist people in the home environment. In particular we investigate how this technology can support speech therapy and return the therapy results to the physicians. We define a cycle that can be easily implemented in an existing smart environment, to maximise the therapy results and adapt it to the changing therapy requirements. In particular, we focus our attention on how common voice assistants (such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home) can, with their interaction and control capabilities, support speech therapy, ensuring it is correctly completed at the given time.