Other projects for children with communication difficulties

How was school today...?

It's difficult enough to remember everything that happened during the day. But what if you also have a disability that means you cannot speak? That makes it very hard to tell your story. Researchers in Aberdeen and Dundee have built a computer system that can tell what a child has been doing during the school day, using sensors and a device like a satnav. The system uses the sensor data and artificial intelligence software to create a story. The child can then use the computer to speak this story to friends or relatives.

("How was school today" website)

PhonicStick

Letters like "a" and "k" represent sounds, and putting two letters together can stand for a sound. So when you see a "s" and a "h" together, you know that this means the sound you make to ask someone to be quiet. Everyone needs to learn this system of letters and their sounds, so as to read things like labels, magazines, books or webpages, or write things like emails or text messages or stories. Children who cannot speak find it much harder to learn how to read, because they cannot make the sounds and combine them to make words. Researchers in Dundee have built a joystick that can combine letters into 42 sounds, and blend these together to make words. They are finding out how this can help children who cannot speak when they are learning to read and write.