Speech disabilites for PhD admission for international applicants One of my Iranian friends wants to apply for a PhD program in computer science to a US university. He can't speak fluently even in our native language at all, but in the other side he has a relatively strong background:


Good GPA in both MSc. and BSc. (> 18 out of 20)
First rank in BSc.
Graduated from most prominent university in Iran (Sharif Univ. of Tech.)


Question: is there any chance for his application to be approved and for him to get funded?

Note that my question is a little general. I'm not considering a particular university. What I am looking for is how much is it possible for a PhD student to not participate in presentations, lectures, team works, typically all works in which he should speak.

In the other hand, I've listed below what he can do perfectly.


Teacher assistant for lower level students (designing exams, assignments, marking exams/quizzes papers, but not presenting at classroom)
Review scholarly articles/papers 
Generally all regular jobs that a normal PhD student can do (excluding speech presentations and such assignments)
Provided he is fluent in written English, I cannot see how his application could legitimately (or legally) be discriminated against. If he can listen to a spoken conversation without problems, that will hugely decrease the concessions needed to accommodate his disability.

Provided he can listen to spoken English without a problem, I do not see why even giving presentations is an unreasonable expectation either. Why not do so in the style of Stephen Hawking, setting to the presentation slides a pre-prepared monologue that is read out by a speech synthesizer? If he is a reasonably fast typist, responding to questions should not be a significant problem either.

This style of communication could even be extended to taking tutorial classes, networking at conferences, etc. Sure, it's a bit awkward and people may take a little while to adjust. But it certainly seems doable.

Perhaps this is relevant reading: Is it possible for people with a stutter to have a career in academia?