Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Communication aid


A group of students at IIT-Bombay recently developed an app that helps children with cerebral palsy, autism and down syndrome communicate
Students of IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay recent ly developed an app that aids communication in children and adults who are learning to speak or have speech difficulties. The app, Jellow communicator, uses icons to speak and read, and can be used by anyone with cerebral palsy, autism spectrum disorder, down syndrome and a brain injury.
“Children with cerebral palsy often have speech difficulties. This can significantly limit their ability to communicate with their peers while impacting their social and cognitive development. Jellow was envisioned to help these children communicate with their surrounding world,“ says Sudha Srinivasan, post-doctoral fellow, IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay.
The groundwork for the app, for which the team conceived a novel visual emotional language protocol, began in 2004 during a project under Microsoft Design Expo. It is composed of nine central category buttons and six expressive side buttons. The content of the category buttons has been developed to include common activities and objects people encounter in their daily lives. The expressive buttons comprise expressions such as like don't like, yes want, no don't want, more and less. To speak using the app, a user needs to press a category button followed by any of the expressive side-buttons.For example, by selecting the `eating' category and then the `like' option (happy face), the app will say, `I like to eat'.
The app has over 8,200 lines of pre-programmed sentences in English and Hindi each. In addition, using the keyboard feature, users can make the app speak customtyped sentences.
“The user studies we conducted provided us with insights and guidelines in terms of content, visual design and information architecture. The biggest challenge in this process was to ensure that the app is compatible with devices with varying screen sizes and resolutions,“ adds Srinivasan.
The app is available for free on Google playstore and has been downloaded by over 900 users since its launch in January this year.


Source: TIMES OF INDIA-13th February,2017