Providing Access to Life Stories for Adults with Communication and Language Impairment

罗伯特是一名50岁的男子，20岁出头时曾是一名职业足球运动员。22岁时中风导致语言和行动能力丧失。他使用轮椅，需要日常生活援助。罗伯特经常试图向别人讲述他的足球生涯故事，因为他在讲述自己的故事时希望人们会把他视为一个不同于坐在椅子上的人。然而，由于他严重的言语障碍，即使是短消息也要花费他的时间和精力；大多数人都失去了耐心。罗伯特担心，当他的姐姐去世时，将没有人知道他的生平故事，他的社会身份将会丢失。丹尼是一名患有脑瘫的30岁女子，一直无法使用自然语言进行清晰的交流。还是个孩子的时候，丹尼就不会讲故事，也没有发展分享故事所需的技能。丹尼参与了研究项目，并展示了学习讲故事技能的能力，但仍然无法平等地参与互动交流。她使用语音输出交流工具来表达需求和愿望，但分享故事的速度慢得令人沮丧。她想探索新的可能性，结交新的朋友，但她受到现有设备的严重限制。罗伯特和丹尼是英国36.5万人中的两人，他们可以从增强型和另类交流中受益更多。虽然他们都使用语音输出通信辅助工具(VOCA)，但他们发现参与交互式对话非常困难。目前的VOCA非常适合支持需求和欲望的表达(如我渴了)，但更复杂的交互，如对话叙事(例如，我告诉过你我去西班牙的那次吗？)这个项目旨在与患有严重言语和身体障碍的成年人、他们的支持人员、家人和朋友合作，利用现有的研究技术来支持他们制定、编辑和讲述自己的叙述。特别是，我们将使用自然语言生成来根据与时间、地点、人和活动有关的基本信息来创建故事。例如，不会说话的人可以使用一张照片来提示照片中的时间、地点、人员和内容。从这些信息中，可以生成这样的句子：上周我在伦敦。我妹妹也在那里。我们登上了伦敦眼。通过选择添加积极或消极的评论，系统可能会生成很棒的评论。要么就是我不喜欢。不会说话的成年人将参与提供系统的要求，并将积极参与系统功能和界面的设计。该系统将允许用户在互动对话期间润色叙事，并在个人的一生中保持对叙事的访问。最终产品将是一个高水平的原型，将与不同环境中的用户进行评估。

Robert is a 50 year old man who was a professional footballer into his early 20s. A stroke at 22 resulted in loss of speech and mobility. He uses a wheelchair and needs daily living assistance. Robert often tries to tell others stories about his football career as it is in telling his story that he hopes people will view him as someone other than a man in a chair . However, because of his severe speech impairment, it takes him time and effort to express even short messages; most people lose patience. Robert worries that when his older sister dies, there will be no one left who knows his life story and his social identity will be lost.Danni, a 30 year old woman with cerebral palsy, has never been able to communicate intelligibly using natural speech. As a child Danni was unable to engage in storytelling and did not develop the skills needed to share stories. Danni has participated in research projects and has demonstrated the ability to learn storytelling skills but remains unable to participate equally in interactive communication. She uses her voice output communication aid to express needs and wants, but sharing stories is frustratingly slow. She wants to explore new possibilities and make new friends, but is severely limited by her existing device. Robert and Danni are two of 365,000 people in the United Kingdom who could benefit more from augmentative and alternative communication. Although they both use voice output communication aids (VOCAs), they find great difficulty in engaging in interactive conversation. Current VOCAs are well suited to supporting the expression of needs and wants (such as I am thirsty), but more complex interactions such as conversational narrative (e.g., Did I tell you about the time I went to Spain?) and social dialogue (e.g., pub chats about football) is not well supported.This project aims to work with adults with severe speech and physical impairment, their support staff, families and friends to harness existing research technology to support them in formulating, editing and telling their own narratives. In particular, we will be using natural language generation to create stories from basic information relating to time, place, people and activity. For example, the nonspeaking person may use a photograph as a prompt to when, where, who and what are in the photo. From this information, it is possible to generate the sentences: Last week I was in London. My sister was there. We went up the London Eye. By choosing to add a positive or negative comment, the system might generate It was great. or I didn't like it. Nonspeaking adults will be involved in providing requirements for the system and will actively participate in designing the system functionality and interface. The system will allow the user to embellish narratives during interactive conversation and to maintain access to narrative over the lifespan of individuals. The end product will be a high level prototype which will be evaluated with users in different environments.