Joshua Hailpern, Karrie G. Karahalios, Jim Halle, Laura DeThorne, Mary-Kelsey Coletto
Through an analysis of existing approaches, we believe there is
potential to create a new direction of research, focusing on using
technology to encourage meaningful speech in low-functioning
children with ASD. Speech would allow these children to express
needs, desires and live more normal lives in society. The literature
provides strong evidence that interacting with technology often can
motivate children with ASD. Further, existing literature shows
that real-time visualizations, which act as social mirrors, can
influence communication interaction. Therefore, we see the
potential of technology to aid teachers in the development of
sounds, words, and speech; thereby contributing to what is an
exclusively human-to-human interaction. By introducing
technology into this form of treatment, we believe we can alleviate
a degree of apprehension experienced by the children when
interacting with humans, and provide teachers with a new
technique to complement and supplement their existing
approaches.
In order to test whether computer generated stimuli (auditory and/or visual) can be constructed to encourage/reinforce sound production in children with ASD, we have begun the first phase of this research project. Our study attempts to uncover the effect of different permutations of auditory and visual feedback on the vocal production of children in our target population. We have constructed approximately a dozen varying types of visualizations, as well as 4 different metaphors for sound feedback.
Joshua Hailpern, Karrie Karahalios, Jim Halle. Creating a Spoken Impact: encouraging vocalization through audio visual feedback. CHI 2009. pdf -- Movie (23.5 MB)
Joshua Hailpern, Karrie Karahalios, Jim Halle, Laura DeThorne, Mary-Kelsey Coletto. Visualizations: Speech, Language and Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Extended Abstracts of CHI 2008. pdf
Joshua Hailpern, Karrie Karahalios, Laura DeThorne, James Halle. Encouraging Speech and Vocalization in Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Workshop on Technology in Mental Health. CHI 2008. pdf
Joshua Hailpern. Encouraging Speech and Vocalization in Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder. ACM SIG ACCESS's Doctoral Consotrium/Winter Newsletter. pdf
We would like to thank NSF-0643502 for their support of this project.