Alternative and Augmentative Communication for People with Disabilities and Language Problems: An Eye Gaze Tracking Approach

Alternative and augmentative communications encapsulates the use of technology to provide communication means for people with some sort of disability. In this paper, we present a prototype that provides both pictographic and alphabetic options to allow communication. Our system was originally designed for people that suffer physical disabilities and are not able to move their body. To allow interaction we provide an eye gazed based interaction. Our system was evaluated with an experienced test subject, because the system requires training to be used. However, evaluations results demonstrated that a skilled user requires less than two seconds (average) to select a pictogram or letter (i.e., in less than a minute, a 30 characters long phrase or up to two semantically correct sentences using pictograms can be produced).