Investigating the effects of corpus and configuration on assistive input methods

<p>Assistive technologies aim to provide assistance to those who are unable to perform various tasks in their day-to-day lives without tremendous difficulty. This includes — amongst other things — communicating with others. Augmentative and adaptive communication (AAC) is a branch of assistive technologies which aims to make communicating easier for people with disabilities which would otherwise prevent them from communicating efficiently (or, in some cases, at all). The input rate of these communication aids, however, is often constrained by the limited number of inputs found on the devices and the speed at which the user can toggle these inputs. A similar restriction is also often found on smaller devices such as mobile phones: these devices also often require the user to input text with a smaller input set, which often results in slower typing speeds. Several technologies exist with the purpose of improving the text input rates of these devices. These technologies include ambiguous keyboards, which allow users to input text using a single keypress for each character and trying to predict the desired word; word prediction systems, which attempt to predict the word the user is attempting to input before he or she has completed it; and word auto-completion systems, which complete the entry of predicted words before all the corresponding inputs have been pressed. This thesis discusses the design and implementation of a system incorporating the three aforementioned assistive input methods, and presents several questions regarding the nature of these technologies. The designed system is found to outperform a standard computer keyboard in many situations, which is a vast improvement over many other AAC technologies. A set of experiments was designed and performed to answer the proposed questions, and the results of the experiments determine that the corpus used to train the system — along with other tuning parameters — have a great impact on the performance of the system. Finally, the thesis also discusses the impact that corpus size has on the memory usage and response time of the system.</p>

Investigating the effects of corpus and configuration on assistive input methods

<p>Assistive technologies aim to provide assistance to those who are unable to perform various tasks in their day-to-day lives without tremendous difficulty. This includes — amongst other things — communicating with others. Augmentative and adaptive communication (AAC) is a branch of assistive technologies which aims to make communicating easier for people with disabilities which would otherwise prevent them from communicating efficiently (or, in some cases, at all). The input rate of these communication aids, however, is often constrained by the limited number of inputs found on the devices and the speed at which the user can toggle these inputs. A similar restriction is also often found on smaller devices such as mobile phones: these devices also often require the user to input text with a smaller input set, which often results in slower typing speeds. Several technologies exist with the purpose of improving the text input rates of these devices. These technologies include ambiguous keyboards, which allow users to input text using a single keypress for each character and trying to predict the desired word; word prediction systems, which attempt to predict the word the user is attempting to input before he or she has completed it; and word auto-completion systems, which complete the entry of predicted words before all the corresponding inputs have been pressed. This thesis discusses the design and implementation of a system incorporating the three aforementioned assistive input methods, and presents several questions regarding the nature of these technologies. The designed system is found to outperform a standard computer keyboard in many situations, which is a vast improvement over many other AAC technologies. A set of experiments was designed and performed to answer the proposed questions, and the results of the experiments determine that the corpus used to train the system — along with other tuning parameters — have a great impact on the performance of the system. Finally, the thesis also discusses the impact that corpus size has on the memory usage and response time of the system.</p>

Effects of a digital reminiscing intervention on people with dementia and their care-givers and relatives

Dementia is a source of growing concern globally, and often impacts on social and communicative functioning. INdependent LIving Support Functions for the Elderly (IN LIFE) was a project carried out within the European Commission Research and Innovation programme Horizon 2020 that resulted in the development of two digital communication aids for reminiscence intervention for elderly people with dementia and their communication partners. The purpose of this intervention study was to investigate the effects on quality of life for people with dementia when using these aids. People with dementia (N = 118) and their formal care-givers (N = 187) and relatives (N = 9) were given the communication aids for a period of 4–12 weeks. To assess a range of outcomes, questionnaires developed within the project were used along with the EQ-5D (European Quality of Life – 5 Dimensions) and QoL-AD (Quality of Life in Alzheimer's Disease) questionnaires. Quality of life improved among people with dementia when measured using EQ-5D (p < 0.05). There was also a correlation between the impact on the participants’ health and wellbeing, the carers’ rating of the usefulness of the digital communication aids and the care-givers’ satisfaction with using technology (p < 0.05). These results indicate that digital communication aids may be useful in social interaction where one partner has dementia.

The Use of Mobile Applications as Communication Aids for People with Dementia: Opportunities and Limitations

Background: Communication difficulties are one of the primary symptoms associated with dementia, and mobile applications have shown promise as tools for facilitating communication in patients with dementia (PwD). The literature regarding mobile health (mHealth) applications, especially communications-based mHealth applications, is limited. Objective: This review aims to compile the existing literature on communications-based mobile applications regarding dementia and assess their opportunities and limitations. A PICO framework was applied with a Population consisting of PwD, Interventions consisting of communication technology, focusing primarily on mobile applications, Comparisons between patient well-being with and without technological intervention, and Outcomes that vary but can include usability of technology, quality of communication, and user acceptance. Methods: Searches of PubMed, IEEE XPLORE, and ACM Digital Library databases were conducted to establish a comprehensive understanding of the current literature on dementia care as related to 1) mobile applications, 2) communication technology, and 3) communications-based mobile applications. Applying certain inclusion and exclusion criteria, yielded a set of articles (n = 11). Results: The literature suggests that mobile applications as tools for facilitating communication in PwD are promising. Mobile applications are not only feasible socially, logistically, and financially, but also produce meaningful communication improvements in PwD and their caregivers. However, the number of satisfactory communications-based mobile applications in the mHealth marketplace and their usability is still insufficient. Conclusion: Despite favorable outcomes, more research involving PwD using these applications are imperative to shed further light on their communication needs and on the role of mHealth.

Identification of Words and Phrases Through a Phonemic-Based Haptic Display

Stand-alone devices for tactile speech reception serve a need as communication aids for persons with profound sensory impairments as well as in applications such as human-computer interfaces and remote communication when the normal auditory and visual channels are compromised or overloaded. The current research is concerned with perceptual evaluations of a phoneme-based tactile speech communication device in which a unique tactile code was assigned to each of the 24 consonants and 15 vowels of English. The tactile phonemic display was conveyed through an array of 24 tactors that stimulated the dorsal and ventral surfaces of the forearm. Experiments examined the recognition of individual words as a function of the inter-phoneme interval (Study 1) and two-word phrases as a function of the inter-word interval (Study 2). Following an average training period of 4.3 hrs on phoneme and word recognition tasks, mean scores for the recognition of individual words in Study 1 ranged from 87.7% correct to 74.3% correct as the inter-phoneme interval decreased from 300 to 0 ms. In Study 2, following an average of 2.5 hours of training on the two-word phrase task, both words in the phrase were identified with an accuracy of 75% correct using an inter-word interval of 1 sec and an inter-phoneme interval of 150 ms. Effective transmission rates achieved on this task were estimated to be on the order of 30 to 35 words/min.

Avaliação de campanhas de saúde: uma revisão integrativa sobre a construção de indicadores

O presente estudo tem o objetivo de mapear indicadores de avaliação de campanhas de comunicação com foco em saúde, através de uma revisão integrativa da literatura, realizada a partir da busca de artigos científicos nas bases de dados da capes, SciELO e anais da compós. A pesquisa considerou o período entre 2009 e 2019 e utilizou os seguintes descritores: ‘communication’ + ‘indicators’; ‘health campaign’ + ‘sti’; ‘communication’ + ‘aids’; ‘health promotion’ + ‘mass media’ + ‘campaign’. Foram analisados dez artigos científicos, após a aplicação dos filtros, resultando na identificação dos seguintes indicadores: 1) alcance; 2) grp; 3) percepção de campanha; 4) efeito da campanha; 5) compreensão; 6) impacto; 7) efetividade; e 8) aceitabilidade. Dentre os indicadores mapeados, identificaram-se estudos com relatos e avaliações de diferentes tipos de campanhas de comunicação pública voltadas para a promoção da saúde, sendo elas: campanhas de prevenção ao hiv/aids, combate ao tabagismo, conscientização ambiental e contra a proliferação da dengue.

PEMBUATAN ALAT BANTU KOMUNIKASI EDUKATIF UNTUK PENYANDANG CEREBRAL PALSY PANTI ASUHAN SAYAP IBU, BINTARO PROTOTYPE: FITTED HEAD POINTING DEVICE

Communication is the main tool for humans to convey information, especially for people with disabilities, communication is very much needed so that they can comunicate Communication will support educational patterns and people with disabilities will be able to get the ideal education. The Banten branch of the Sayap Ibu Foundation has a Special School which is an institution that is engaged in providing education for neglected children with special needs, especially persons with disabilities with Cerebral Palsy conditions. The contribution of product design procurement in designing user-based tools in providing educational communication aids for Cerebral Palsy children at the Sayap Ibu Orphanage is an effort to realize the design of assistive devices for independent educational patterns so that they can type with motor limitations in moving their fingers. Trials and fundamental research in multidisciplinary child development and special education combined in the contribution of tactical design, this design product was developed by the principal, therapist, and the writing team to be realized into a useful design product for Cerebral Palsy children in supporting communication in education they received. With the trial & error method that has been carried out by partners, it is developed with detailed mapping of respondent activities that will be made on a 1: 1 scale for educational communication tools, namely Prototype: Fitted Head Pointing Device. The typing aid that is placed on the head and hands due to the limitations of the respondents in moving their fingers is considered very effective in helping them to type and express their limited forms of communication.ABSTRAK:Komunikasi adalah alat dan modal utama untuk manusia dapat menyampaikan informasi, terutama untuk penyandang disabilias komunikasi menjadi sangat dibutuhkan untuk mereka dapat menyampaikan informasi dan mendapatkan informasi. Komunikasi akan menunjang pola edukasi dan penyandang disabilitas akan dapat mendapatkan pendidikan yang ideal. Yayasan Sayap Ibu cabang Banten memiliki Sekolah Sayap Ibu yang merupakan salah satu lembaga yang bergerak di bidang penyelenggaraan pendidikan bagi anak-anak berkebutuhan khusus yang terlantar khususnya penyandang disabilitas dengan kondisi Cerebral Palsy. Kontribusi pengadaan produk desain dalam perancangan alat bantu berbasis pengguna dalam penyediaan alat bantu komunikasi edukatif untuk anak Cerebral Palsy Panti Asuhan Sayap Ibu ini adalah upaya mewujudkan perancangan alat bantu untuk pola edukasi mandiri agar mereka dapat mengetik dengan keterbatasan motorik dalam menggerakan jemari tangan mereka. Uji coba riset mendasar dalam multidisiplin tumbuh kembang anak dan pendidikan khusus dipadu dalam kontribusi desain taktis produk desain ini dikembangkan oleh kepala sekolah, terapis, dan tim penulis untuk dapat di realisasikan menjadi sebuah produk desain yang bermanfaat untuk anak Cerebral Palsy dalam menunjang komunikasi di pendidikan yang mereka terima. Dengan metode uji coba (trial & eror) yang telah di lakukan pihak mitra di kembangkan dengan pemetaan detail aktivitas responden akan dibuat dalam skala 1:1 alat bantu komunikasi edukatif yaitu Prototype: Fitted Head Pointing Device. Alat bantu mengetik yang di letakan di kepala dan tangan karena keterbatasan responden dalam menggerakan jemari ini dianggap sangat efektif untuk membantu mereka dapat mengetik dan mengekspresikan bentuk komunikasi mereka yang terbatas