Software for Alternative Communication

University of Mogi das Cruzes30 enrolled

Overview

The aim of this study is evaluate a software developed for alternative communication designed for people with speech difficulties. The software was executed by 30 volunteers using mobile devices that helped to play the scenarios simulated of communication situations.

Communication is a fundamental element that contributes to the development of the human being, promoting their coexistence in society. However, several factors, among them the Cerebral palsy (CP), can cause changes in muscle tone, causing injury in phono-articulatory which prevent or impair the speech production. This research aims to the development of a mobile application to promote the augmentative and alternative communication for people with CP, which adapt to the characteristics of motor limitations of these users. A mobile application was developed with pictographic resources and a voice synthesis engine, which can be customized according to the level of motor impairment and need for communication of the user. Were recruited 30 volunteers with CP who have speech difficulties and motor impairment. By means of a test script, these volunteers have used the mobile application and evaluated their usability using the questionnaire System Usability Scale (SUS), which contains 10 questions related to the ease of learning, efficiency, ease of memorization, occurrence of runtime errors of execution and level of user satisfaction.

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Masking

NONE

Enrollment

Conditions

Speech Impairment

Interventions

Presentation of alternative communication applicationOTHER

At this stage the purpose of the application is submitted, what its purpose and its features in a brief and clear manner.

Familiarization with the software interfaceOTHER

At this stage, the volunteer will be asked to use the application by himself for a short time so that he can get acquainted and learn to use it

Test of the softwareOTHER

Then, the volunteer is instructed to use the application following a script task that will expose a simple and fast way all the application features. These tasks have easy actions to be executed, for example: The user must communicate through the application the phrase "I want to drink water," so that he will be instructed to perform the actions to select the option and then drink the water option.

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 12 Years

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * Cerebral Palsy and speech disorder Exclusion Criteria: * visual impairment and / or severe cognitive impairment

Locations (2)

Cid Torquato

Mogi das Cruzes, São Paulo, Brazil

Sesi Suzano

Suzano, São Paulo, Brazil

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Questionnaire

Questionnaire based in System Usability Scale (SUS) with 10 item questionnaire and five response options for respondents. Each response can be chosen in range: totally disagree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree, agree and totally agree.

Time frame: 15 minutes

Data from ClinicalTrials.gov

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