Custom-made
AAC system
An open-source AAC system that benefits from the latest research advances. Highly configurable, it adapts to a large variety of motor, perceptive and linguistic abilities, as well as to the cognitive development of the users. Any computer scientist or company can integrate its components in their own solution. Any contribution to the platform is also welcome. A tracking and user data visualisation module aims at giving insights for the adaptation of the system user’s needs, in compliance with GDPR regulation on privacy. This module will be also helpful for scientific evaluation purposes.
Solutions for an
Alternative &
Augmentative
Communication
designed for all
Recommandation
platform
In order to assist caregivers in the choice of a suitable AAC system among the many existing solutions, AAC4All will propose a web recommendation platform that list all the tools available on the market or in research. This platform will offer an information sheet for each tool, with detailed characteristics, demonstration videos and experience feedback. The search of an specific adapted AAC system in the platform will be guided either by the user motor of cognitive abilities or by the systems functionalities.
Guidelines
and evaluation
Assessing the quality of AAC systems is difficult due to their complexity and diversity. One aim of the AAC4All project is to better understand how users interact simultaneously with the virtual keyboard, word prediction and spelling correction, but also how they understand pictograms sequences in the case of non-written communication. Real-life evaluation campaigns will be conducted, which may result in the proposal of recommendations for the design of AAC systems.
What is AAC ?
Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) aids are technical systems that supplement or replace speech and/or writing for people suffering from serious speech and language impairments. AAC concerns a large diversity of physical and/or cognitive disabilities to which there is an equally wide range of responses in terms technical aids. An AAC system consists usually on a virtual keyboard, a dedicated control device and a speech synthesis. Caregivers (occupational and speech therapists) help people with special needs to find the AAC system that will restore the best the communication abilities of its user.
AAC4All project : context and challenges
Choosing a suitable AAC solution is far from easy. Since every potential user is unique, a diagnosis conducted with an occupational therapy is necessary to define one’s detailed needs in terms of augmentative or alternative communication. Then, the characterisation of the assistance solution that may fit these needs is complicated by the extreme fragmentation of the AAC field. Many AAC devices are marketed or developed by research laboratories. They differ from each other by many features (keyboard organization, prediction technique, physical control device, configuration facilities…), while very few experimental studies or recommendation guidelines are existing, that can help the prescription of a well-adapted system. Researches in the AAC field suffers also from its multidisciplinary nature : few research laboratories bring together all the scientific disciplines needed to cover all of the domain of AAC. In response to this detrimental situation, AAC4All brings together a consortium of partners that aims at proposing a unique platform where patients, therapists, researchers and companies will find freely software resources as well as valuable information and guidelines on AAC.