WRITING SOFTWARE FOR THE DEAF

这项研究的目标是生产一个低成本的文字处理程序

The goal of this research is to produce a low-cost, word processing program with spelling- and grammar-checking capabilities that are tailored to assist Deaf and hearing impaired students learn to write correct English. The software is a modification of WRITE THIS WAY, real-time natural language parsing technology that has previously been produced by Emerson & Stern. Specific aims for Phase II include: (1) porting the software to a low-end Macintosh computer, which is necessary to enhance the Phase I spelling and syntactical analysis functions of the program; (2) producing materials to help educators of the Deaf use the program effectively; (3) adding semantic analysis and limited phrase translation capabilities to the software to address problems in analyzing deaf students' writing and providing them with useful assistance; and (4) conduct a time-series design controlled study to determine the effectiveness of the software and its various features. The technological innovations in this effort center on the addition of semantic and morphological analysis capabilities and the implementation of a phrase translation (Sign/English) feature. Any natural language parsing tool with such sophisticated features has the potential for immediate application in automatic machine translation, natural language database inquiry systems, and the sorting of electronically transmitted messages.