Adams Kim, Cook Al
a Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine , University of Alberta , Edmonton , Alberta , Canada and.
b Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital , Edmonton , Alberta , Canada.
Disabil Rehabil Assist Technol. 2016;11(5):433-43. doi: 10.3109/17483107.2014.986224. Epub 2014 Dec 11.
A 12-year-old girl, Emily, with complex communication needs and severe physical limitations, controlled a Lego robot from a speech-generating device (SGD) to do various "hands-on" academic activities. Emily's teacher and assistive technology (AT) team thought that controlling a robot would motivate Emily to "use her SGD more".
A descriptive case study was used because the integration of communication and manipulation technologies is not yet understood. Target activities and goals were chosen by Emily's teacher and AT team. Emily performed several manipulative math activities and engaged in an "acting" activity aimed at increasing her message length. The competency skills needed to control a robot from the SGD were examined, as well as stakeholder satisfaction with the robot system.
Emily generated up to 0.4 communication events and 7 robot commands per minute in the activities. Her length of utterance was usually one-word long, but she generated two- and three-word utterances during some activities. Observations of Emily informed a framework to describe the competency skills needed to use SGDs to control robots. Emily and her teacher expressed satisfaction with robot use.
Robot use could motivate students to build SGD operational skills and learn educational concepts. Implications for Rehabilitation Controlling a robot from a speech-generating device (SGD) could increase students' motivation, engagement and understanding in learning educational concepts, because of the hands-on enactive approach. The robot and SGD system was acceptable to the participant and teacher and elicited positive comments from classmates. Thus, it may provide a way for children with disabilities to link with the curriculum and with other students in the classroom. Controlling a robot via SGD presents opportunities to improve augmentative and alternative communication operational, linguistic, social and strategic skills. Careful choice of activities will ensure that the activity requirements focus on the desired target skill, e.g. drawing or playing board games could be helpful to build operational skills and acting out stories could be helpful for building linguistic skills.
12岁女孩艾米丽有复杂的沟通需求且身体严重受限，她通过语音生成设备（SGD）控制乐高机器人来开展各种“实践”学术活动。艾米丽的老师和辅助技术（AT）团队认为，控制机器人会激励艾米丽“更多地使用她的SGD”。
采用描述性案例研究，因为沟通与操作技术的整合尚不清楚。目标活动和目标由艾米丽的老师和AT团队选定。艾米丽进行了几项数学操作活动，并参与了一项旨在增加她的信息长度的“表演”活动。研究了从SGD控制机器人所需的能力技能，以及利益相关者对机器人系统的满意度。
在活动中，艾米丽每分钟最多产生0.4次沟通事件和7条机器人指令。她的话语长度通常为一个词，但在一些活动中她生成了两个词和三个词的话语。对艾米丽的观察形成了一个框架，用于描述使用SGD控制机器人所需的能力技能。艾米丽和她的老师对使用机器人表示满意。
使用机器人可以激励学生培养SGD操作技能并学习教育概念。康复启示 通过语音生成设备（SGD）控制机器人，由于采用了实践体验式方法，可以提高学生在学习教育概念时的积极性、参与度和理解能力。机器人和SGD系统得到了参与者和老师的认可，并得到了同学们的积极评价。因此，它可能为残疾儿童提供一种与课程以及课堂上的其他学生建立联系的方式。通过SGD控制机器人为提高辅助和替代沟通的操作、语言、社交和策略技能提供了机会。精心选择活动将确保活动要求专注于期望的目标技能，例如绘画或玩棋盘游戏有助于培养操作技能，表演故事有助于培养语言技能。
