INTRODUCTION

This project started as building a device/aide that would speak for a fully cognitive person trapped inside a body that could not readily communicate. This person suffered severe trauma to his fine-motor control center and as a result he is not able to speak (but can make a single sound), lacks the coordination skills required to operate anything but the largest buttons, and tends to have muscle spasms when excited. This person’s family is not rich, and cannot afford the current price tags of the commercially available augmentative communication aides to help him communicate with the world at large.

Given my background in computers and electronics I decided to build a communication aide. I realized that this was a big project and went to other people throughout the university to get their input and take advantage of their background. Together we decided the aide should be based on the following set of goals:

1. To build the aide so that the client could operate it in a highly efficient manner.
2. To provide enough feedback that the client would not be required to memorize an inordinate amount of information to be able to operate it.
3. To make the aide as normal and comfortable as possible for both the client, and the people the client might be talking to. This included making it so the client could operate it fast enough to carry on real-time spontaneous conversation.
4. To make the aide easy to use for both the client and his facilitators.
5. To provide the flexibility for the client to express any thought or idea he wants.
6. To make the aide affordable.

This project lead us into the very interesting and fulfilling area of augmentative aides for the disabled. We learned many important aspects of this part of our society that is mostly ignored because of ignorance, self-absorbence, or lost humanity and caring.

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