EAGER: New User-Centered Design Techniques for Building Assistive Technology for Children who are Presymbolic Communicators

该项目开发新的以用户为中心的设计技术，供语言病理学家和辅助技术专家使用，让有严重认知和沟通障碍的儿童的父母参与定制辅助技术的设计、组装、培训和评估。目标用户是年轻的“前符号传播者”，其中包括没有功能性语言和不使用辅助和替代交流（AAC）设备的儿童，但他们有特殊的手势、动作和发声，家庭成员可以理解。例如，该人群包括患有严重脑瘫、唐氏综合征和Rett综合征的个体。该项目为这些个人提供了他们的第一个可用和采用的辅助技术；并为辅助技术从业者、家庭成员和护理人员提供易于复制的协议和工具包，以便他们自己开发和部署AAC解决方案。该项目让研究生和本科生参与研究和实践，解决具体的现实问题，并建立辅助技术领域急需的科学理论。该项目为辅助技术和AAC解决方案的设计和部署建立了一种新的跨学科方法。该方法集成了人机交互（HCI）和通信障碍科学（CDS），特别是基于HCI的以用户为中心的设计方法与基于CDS的建立和评估通信协议的方法。例如，与CDS方法一致，父母和儿童在临床环境中收集筛查和评估数据；与HCI方法一致，家庭在家中参与设计会议，以充分探索新的AAC设备的想法。通过这种多方面的用户参与，该项目正在开发全新的(a)以用户为中心的设计流程，与父母和孩子合作，达到精确的儿童设备交互，这将适用于患有严重智力障碍的儿童；(b)软件和硬件工具包，以快速探索广泛的定制用户交互，以吸引这些前符号传播者。

The project develops new user-centered design techniques for use by speech language pathologists and assistive technology specialists to engage parents of children with severe cognitive and communication impairments in the design, assembly, training, and evaluation of customized assistive technology. The target users are young "presymbolic communicators", which includes children who have no functional speech and no use of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices, but who have idiosyncratic gestures, movements, and vocalizations that family members can understand. The population includes, for example, individuals with severe cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, and Rett syndrome. The project provides such individuals with their first usable and adopted piece of assistive technology; and provides assistive technology practitioners, family members, and caregivers with an easily-replicated protocol and toolkit for developing and deploying AAC solutions on their own. The project engages graduate and undergraduate students in research and practice that solves specific real-world problems, and builds scientific theory that is badly needed in the field of assistive technology.The project establishes a new interdisciplinary approach to the design and deployment of assistive technology and AAC solutions. The approach integrates human-computer interaction (HCI) and communication disorder sciences (CDS), specifically the HCI-based approach of user-centered design with CDS-based approach of establishing and evaluating communication protocols. For example, consistent with CDS approaches, parents and children are engaged in a clinical setting to collect screening and evaluation data; and consistent with HCI approaches, families are engaged in participatory design sessions in their homes to fully explore ideas for new AAC devices. Through this multi-faceted user engagement, the project is developing fundamentally new (a) user-centered design processes to collaborate with parents and children to arrive at the precise child-device interaction that will work for a child with profound intellectual impairments, and (b) software and hardware toolkits to rapidly explore a wide range of customized user interactions to engage these presymbolic communicators.