Aten cannot control his muscles, nor can he speak as well as other children do. Suffering from cerebral palsy, the three-and-a-half-year-old boy can hardly articulate to his parents what he wants to do, wants to eat or where he would like to go.
But today Aten seems to be happier--he now enjoys communicating with his parents and other people more because he has a tool, a computer by which he can express his desires.
Now he can better communicate to his parents that he would like to eat kao-man-kai (chicken rice), or lad-na (fried noodles) by just touching the computer screen.
This is all possible, thanks to equipment and a computer program developed by the Assistive Technology Center (Astec) of the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (Nectec) in Thailand.
Nectec has teamed up with Siriraj Hospital to conduct a trial project using prototype equipment and software to help people with communication, language or speech problems.
Astec had been developing assistive technologies for many years, but this is the first time it has integrated applications to make the technology practical in the medical field, according to Astec researcher Prakasit Kayasit.
Assistive technology for persons with disabilities includes augmentative and alternative communication devices, on-screen keyboards, speech augmentative communication programs, word prediction, sign-language programs, touch keyboards, text telephones for the deaf, talking word processors, picture dictionaries and speech assessment software.
Prakasit said the difficulty lay in designing the input to these programs so as to make them generally suitable for use because the requirements of one disabled person may be totally different from another's.
The equipment prototypes and software that Nectec has developed for the Medical Faculty of Siriraj Hospital include Thai speech assessment software called Prasai, a program for the speech-impaired and an ICU Talk system.
The Thai speech assessment software is animation-based and tests voice abnormality and voice quality, sampling and recording voice pitch control, voice onset, voice control and loudness. The program can record and report on the performance of users.
Prasai helps patients who have lost their ability to speak, enabling them to communicate with others by using a computer. The goal is to facilitate or rehabilitate patients' communications ability by using pictures, text and sounds to represent meaning. The content can be specifically selected to serve each patient who just presses the screen to select a picture or a word, after which the appropriate sound will be made.
ICU Talk is a communications program to help patients who cannot control their physical functions normally and cannot speak. The general features are like those in Prasai, but the program has been designed to serve people with many different disabilities. Some may command the system via a touch screen while others may use a switch designed to fit a finger, arm, leg or their head.
Some patients may control the system using image processing or voice synthesis while all three programs can be accessed by patients of any age.
There are many different types of patients who have a problems speaking. Cerebral palsy is one condition and over 2,000 patients see doctors and therapists regularly at Siriraj Hospital's Department of Rehabilitation Medicine.
According to Dr Sriwimon Manochiopinig, head of the department's Speech Language Therapy Division, children suffering from cerebral palsy were unable to control their limbs and thus developed more slowly.
Talking is related to eating because muscles are used for both activities and patients with muscle control problems also have difficulty using touch screens and need regular practice, she said.
Siriraj's Speech Language Therapy Division has two language therapists and two linguists serving more than 2,000 patients.
The hospital has set a short-term target that patients would improve their speech capabilities within six months after encountering the assistive technology and after that the hospital will hold training in the use of the software-based tools for therapists and support groups.
"We would like to make sure that the program works well and is user-friendly and then we will train others and make the software more popular," she said.
Patients can use it at the hospital while waiting to see a doctor or therapist or could use it at home, she said.
The content has been created by a Siriraj Hospital team who selected pictures, text and audio in various categories, depending on the patient. This program also allows doctors to make a medication plan, to keep patients' records and to evaluate their performance.
Training other therapists and patients' families in how to use the equipment and the software would be a practical way to increase the patients' chance to practice speaking and the hospital had a plan to run some online training courses this year, Dr Sriwimon said.
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