Software will help disabled children to communicate with their carers

Published on Thursday 4 June 2009 21:50

SCOTTISH scientists are helping to unlock the silent world of children suffering from cerebral palsy and other serious disabilities where there are major barriers to communication. They have developed a software system to enable children who cannot speak to hold conversations.

The prototype system has been developed as a result of a year-long research project involving computing experts from Aberdeen and Dundee universities and Capability Scotland, one of the country's leading charities for the disabled.

The system, "How was school today?", has been developed to allow the children to communicate by linking a voice-generating computer to a system of sensors on their wheelchair that records where they have been, and swipe cards which record the people they have met and the activities in which they have been involved.

The computer then analyses the information and suggests possible short and simple sentences which a child can then personalise using icons such as a smiley face to describe someone they like.

The system has already been tested successfully at Capability's Corseford School in Renfrewshire.

One of the pupils, Nicole Vallery said: "It made me feel good about myself." Dr Ehud Reiter, one of the lead researchers from Aberdeen University's School of Natural and Computing Sciences, said "What we are trying to do is to help these children have a real conversation with their parents about what they did at school."