Helping students with cerebral palsy program via voice-enabled block-based programming

Abstract

Students with motor disabilities like cerebral palsy face challenges when learning how to program. This is because most programming platforms require a certain level of dexterity that students with cerebral palsy do not possess. Block-based programming environments are one of such platforms. These environments are useful when teaching programming concepts to beginners, however, their drag and drop nature makes them inaccessible to students with cerebral palsy. This limitation deprives students with cerebral palsy of experiences that may allow them explore careers in computing. As a solution, I propose the use of speech as an alternative form of input in the Block-based programming environment, Blockly. This voice-enabled version of Blockly will reduce the need for the use of a mouse or keyboard, hence increase accessibility for students with cerebral palsy. As part of my approach, I incorporate a speech recognition API into the Blockly environment, as well as create a custom function that uses voice commands to simulate keyboard and mouse actions. An exploratory study is currently in the works and a usability study and A/B test will be conducted after the prototype has been fully implemented.