Jan Dekelver

Computers Helping People with Special Needs

In this paper we propose a visual-based speech learning framework to assist deaf persons by comparing the lip movements between a student and an E-tutor in an intelligent tutoring system. The framework utilizes lip reading technologies to determine if a student learns the correct pronunciation. Different from conventional speech recognition systems, which usually recognize a speaker’s utterance, our speech learning framework focuses on recognizing whether a student pronounces are correct according to an instructor’s utterance by using visual information. We propose a method by extracting dynamic shape difference features (DSDF) based on lip shapes to recognize the pronunciation difference. The preliminary experimental results demonstrate the robustness and effectiveness of our approach on a database we collected, which contains multiple persons speaking a small number of selected words.

Viamigo: Monitoring Tool to Support Independent Travel by Persons with Intellectual Disabilities

Persons with intellectual disabilities (PwIDs) often aspire to more social inclusion by engaging in more community activities but encounter social barriers when traveling independently. Therefore, ...Persons with intellectual disabilities (PwIDs) often aspire to more social inclusion by engaging in more community activities but encounter social barriers when traveling independently. Therefore, PwIDs are often accompanied by family members, friends, or volunteers. In order to both support the independent outdoor mobility of PwIDs themselves and reduce the caregivers’ burden, the geographic information system–based application “Viamigo” was developed (www.viamigo.be), which allows a personal coach to monitor an individual in real time from a distance. The goal is to teach PwIDs a known individual route that they can accomplish independently while being monitored by a personal coach, caregiver, family member, or friend who is taking care of the individual making the trip. Viamigo determines the location of the user and compares this in time and space within a predetermined range and automatically sends notifications to the coach in case the user deviates from the route, travels at an incorrect speed, or enters or leaves a safe or dangerous zone, among other factors. Besides this on-route functionality, Viamigo also allows the creation of geofences around destinations (to monitor whether the user stays within a predefined zone) and emergency tracking. The initial results are promising: PwIDs successfully used Viamigo for a heterogeneous set of trips performed by several travel modes (bus, cycling, and walking) for several activity purposes (both daily recurrent trips to the day center and trips for shopping, social, and recreational purposes) and for different distances.

LIT: Labour Interest Test for People with Intellectual Disabilities

The LIT (Labour Interest Test) for people with intellectual disabilities is an online test that probes interest for different labour opportunities. This test is based upon an earlier test, made by Lamings and Hezemans, a test which is frequently used for career counseling and guidance of people with intellectual disabilities, but which lacks theoretical basis and empirical validation. Therefore, in-dept interviews with the job coaches, observations during the test and statistical analysis led to suggestions for improvement and updating the test which were tested in several iterations. This paper focuses on the process through which these changes were made and the stakeholders who were involved in this process.

Viamigo: A digital travel assistant for people with intellectual disabilities: Modeling and design using contemporary intelligent technologies as a support for independent traveling of people with intellectual disabilities

The ABLE-TO-INCLUDE is a European CIP project that seeks to improve the lives of people with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD) and similar conditions. In order to be included in todays society it is becoming increasingly important to be able to use the current available technological tools. The number of apps is growing exponentially but very few are really accessible to people with IDD. Accessibility is usually a missing variable of the equation, and when present is usually directed towards user with a sensory disability, such as visual or listening impairment. This scenario derives in a social breach that excludes people with IDD from the information society. In order to palliate this situation, the ABLE-TO-INLCUDE project creates a context aware accessibility layer based in developed components that, by being integrated with existent and future ICT tools (especially with mobile apps) can improve daily tasks of people with IDD and help them interact with the information society. The integration of this accessibility layer with existent ICT tools will be demonstrated in 3 different pilots in Spain, Belgium and UK, in 3 different usage scenarios (leisure within the information society, mobility and labour integration). In this paper, we focus on the mobility pilot in Belgium. This pilot builds on the research that led to the development of the Viamigo toolkit. This is composed of apps that monitors people on the move, evaluates their position against the expected path and alerts caretakers or coaches when unexpected events occur. The benefits of such a toolkit are discussed. Vulnerable people use Viamigo. The organisations, parents and caretakers are often not very familiar with the use of technology. The design and modeling of Viamigo is therefore much depending on users expectations and acceptance of the technology. This paper will report on methods and results of the human-centered approach walked hand in hand with the development cycle. This paper also reports on interactions with the different stakeholders, the technological choices that resulted from this and the architecture that is put in place to support these choices. The Viamigo project is used as an interdisciplinary platform that brings together students from engineering, social science and occupational therapy. They contribute to the research from different perspectives and collaborate over the borders of their own study field. Finally, we discuss the future development, based on user experiences and technological opportunities.