School was great today, says Nicole

Jun 19 2009 by Jeff Holmes, Paisley Daily Express

PIONEERING technology will help young children with communication difficulties to be able to take control of conversations.

And pupils from Corseford School, Johnstone were the first to trial the new system.

The innovative software, developed by Scottish scientists, is called How was school today? and uses a combination of technologies to enable children with disabilities such as cerebral palsy and learning difficulties to have conversations in a faster, more interactive way.

The system is the result of a year long collaborative project between computing scientists from the Universities of Dundee and Aberdeen, as well as Capability Scotland.

Sue Williams, headteacher at Corseford, said: “In the week we used the system we found it very useful to pupils, teachers, therapists and parents alike.

“It allows children to take control of the conversation without having to rely on help from us.”

Nicole Vallery and Rebecca Clelland were two of the pupils chosen by Corseford to test the new software.

Nicole’s mum, Jan, said: “We really enjoyed using How was school today? and hearing Nicole’s story.

“The programme enabled her to talk easily and answer questions quickly, prompting more interaction and giving us a very detailed insight into her day.”

A child using How was school today? can create a story describing what they did that day, and then use the technology to tell it to a parent or guardian.

The system involves a sensor being attached to the child’s wheelchair which tracks and records where they are going within their school day.

Swipe cards are then used by the teachers or carers who interact with the child to tell the system who the child has met and what activity they have been involved in.

A recording device is also used, which allows people who come into contact with the child to record more detailed information about the events which have taken place within the youngster’s day.

The sensor data is used to generate simple sentences using natural language generation techniques which summarise events.

Rolf Black from the University of Dundee’s School of Computing explained: “For a child with severe motor disabilities and limited or no speech, holding a conversation is often very difficult and limited to short one to two word answers.

“To tell a longer story a communication device is often needed to form sentences but this can be very time consuming, putting a lot of strain on holding and controlling the conversation.”

After the promising results and overwhelming support at Corseford, the prototype is to be used with more children over a longer period of time.

The pupils who have already trialled the technology are delighted to have the chance to test it again.

Rebecca said: “It was something different, I enjoyed it.”

Nicole added: “I was happy to take part in How was school today? It made me feel good about myself.”