REKNEW: Enhancing Communication and Interaction for Individuals with Severe Disabilities: A Novel Interface Leveraging Multiple Information Sources
Project Description:
This project builds and tests new technology to help people with severe speech and motor impairments better control computers and use them to communicate. Such impairments make it very hard to use voice, touch, keyboard, and other common ways of interacting with computers. One alternative that can help is "single-switch" interaction, where systems allow people to use the muscle control they do have to simulate clicking a single button. For instance, Stephen Hawking famously composed lectures and interview responses with his computer by twitching his cheek; other interfaces use blinking, or puffing air into a special sensor. However, these single-switch interaction methods, and the interfaces built based on them, are much slower and more error-prone than voice, touch, or keyboard interfaces. In this project, the research team collaborates with people with severe disabilities to develop technology to make it faster, easier, and more accurate for this set of people to communicate and use computers. The key general idea is to use additional information about a person's context such as where they are looking, what they have done recently, and other clues to their intentions to help computers guess, and suggest, complicated communication goals based on simple single-switch interactions.
Keyword(s):
Assistive technology, People with severe speech and motor impairments
Core Function(s):
Performing Research or Evaluation
Area of Emphasis
Health-Related Activities, Other - Assistive Technology
Target Audience:
Professionals and Para-Professionals, Family Members/Caregivers, Adults with Disabilities
Unserved or Under-served Populations:
Specific Groups
Primary Target Audience Geographic Descriptor:
Single-County, Mulit-County, State, National
COVID-19 Related Data:
N/A
