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Gareth Evans, Paul Blenkhorn and Chris Painter
Evans and Blenkhorn are with the Centre for Rehabilitation
Engineering, Speech and Sensory Technology (CRESST), Department
of Computation, UMIST, Manchester, UK, g.evans@co.umist.ac.uk
Painter is with RNIB Condover Hall School, Condover, Nr
Shrewsbury, UK
Introduction Software packages are used quite extensively by
children and adults who have profound and multiple
disabilities. These packages are used for a variety of reasons.
Some are designed to be used for sensory stimulation, where the
intention is to attract and hold the client's interest and
attention on a set of visual images and/or sounds. Other
software is designed to stimulate the client to interact with
the computer, with the intention of developing the client's
understanding of cause and effect concepts and the development
of the client's skills in using an access device, typically a
switch or touch screen (we will, for simplicity's sake refer to
these activities as switch skills). Other programs are used to
give the client access to the school curriculum and support
numeracy and literacy skills. In this paper we focus on one
program, called Carousel, which was originally designed to
address the development of switch skills. However, as can be
seen in the examples discussed below, it is actually being used
for a wide range of activities involving the presentation of
visual and auditory information/stimulation. There are a large
number of commercially available programs that address this
area, therefore, before describing Carousel and some of the
activities that have been developed for it, we will briefly
review the features of other programs and try to identify the
novel features of Carousel.
Most software designed to develop switch skills works in a
similar way. When the client activates their input device the
software carries out some action, which generally involves the
alteration of a visual image and/or the production of some
sound. The way in which the software interacts with the input
device is often configurable. For example, when using a single
switch, the action may take place when the switch is first
depressed or when it is released. The former teaches switch
location skills, the latter develops skills in leaving the
switch. To prevent 'switch banging', i.e. a user who repeatedly
hits his/her switch and pays little attention to the output of
the software, delays may be set so that software only responds
if the switch has not been depressed for a certain amount of
time. One typical activity is picture building. Each time the
switch is activated a new element is added to the picture. When
the picture is completed, it is often animated and/or a
'completion' sound is played
Software packages that address the development of switch
skills can be classified into two types, as either
fixed-activity or framework packages. Fixed-activity software
provides a fixed set of activities, that is, a sequence of
switch presses always has the same result in terms of the
images and sounds produced. This type of software has
considerable advantages. Firstly, it is usually straightforward
to set up and run; this is particularly important where the
teacher or carer has limited time or rudimentary IT skills.
Secondly, the images and sounds can be very appealing, drawn
and animated to professional standards. Finally, some packages
of this type allow a degree of configuration so that the images
can be altered to meet the user's preferences. For example, the
colour, size and complexity of images might be altered to
address the client's visual and cognitive abilities. However,
fixed-activity software has a number of drawbacks. Firstly, the
user is usually presented with the same set of images and
sounds, whilst familiarity and predictability can be good over
a short period of time, the client may well become
disinterested over a longer period. Secondly, the images and
sounds my not be age and/or culturally appropriate. For
example, most of this type of software is designed for young
children, yet it is used quite extensively with older children,
teenagers and adults. Finally, the images and sounds used may
not be suited to the user in other ways. Many users respond
better to images and sounds taken from a familiar environment
than to the type of images and sounds that are presented in
typical fixed-activity software. Therefore, there is a need for
the software to be configurable so that it matches their
interests and needs.
Framework packages allow the set of images and sounds to be
configured so that they are appropriate to the client's needs
and interests. The fact that the content for the activities can
be configured is very desirable. However, they present one very
significant problem, that is, who is to configure the software?
The general assumption is that this is the teacher or carer who
is working with the client. However, the development of
reasonably complex activities such as picture building requires
a large amount of time and reasonably significant IT skills. It
is not thought likely that any but the most interested and IT
literate teachers and carers will develop such material. One
way of addressing the problem is to attempt to make the
framework program as simple as possible, from the perspective
of both the teacher/carer and from the client. In this way it
was hoped that teachers and carers would be able to develop
activities appropriate to their users needs. Carousel was,
therefore, developed as an experiment, to see whether teachers
and carers would use a simple framework program and whether the
simple activities that could be developed would lead to a
rewarding experience for the users.
Carousel was designed for, and by, members of the UK's CAMI
(Computers and Multiple Impairments) group. Most of the members
of the group are practising teachers, and advisors who work
with the user group on a regular basis. Whilst many members of
the group are skilled computer users several are not. Carousel
was presented to the group on CD-ROM together with a large
number of resources (images and sounds).
Carousel
Carousel presents an activity as a sequence of frames.
Whenever, the client depresses his/her switch the next frame in
the sequence is presented. If a second switch is available,
operating this replays the current frame. A frame consists of
one or more of the following:
An image. This may be a static drawing created using a
graphical drawing package or selected from the wide range of
public domain 'clip-art'. Carousel supports bitmap and Windows
metafile formats for this purpose. The image may be a
photographic image (in JPEG) produced using a digital camera or
a scanner. Finally, the image may be a video clip (in avi
format); this can be captured using a standard video recorder
and processed by digital editing software or may be a produced
on a digital video camera. The background colour, that forms
the border around most images, may be changed. A sound. This is
played when the frame is first displayed. The sound may be
selected from the wide range of public domain files that are
available (wav and MIDI files can be played) or the sound may
be captured on a multimedia PC. Text. Text can be placed above
or below the picture or in the centre of the picture. Text uses
any of the system's installed fonts, font sizes and colours.
Each activity set can contain up to 50 frames. It is possible
to link activities, so that sequence length is effectively
unlimited. Activities are reasonably easy to configure. Images
and sounds are selected from files. The creator / editor of the
activities can see the image and hear the sound when it is
selected. Text is typed as needed. Example Activities
Activities constructed from available image and sound
files
There are a huge number of images and sounds that are freely
available on the Internet. These can be readily used in
programs like Carousel, although we have found it convenient to
gather some of them together onto a CD-ROM and distribute them
with the software. An example activity is one that presents an
image together with a matching sound (for example the image of
a telephone is presented with the sound of a telephone
ringing). Another example, developed for a deaf-blind adult,
has no images but uses a sequence built of sound files of
people laughing. This client rarely smiles except when she is
using this activity. This type of activity has also been used
to create software that is age appropriate. For example,
activities have been made for an adult client who was
interested in steam trains, these have been developed from
public domain images and sounds.
Activities created from available images and custom
sound
Multimedia computers have reasonable sound recording
facilities. This allows the sound files to be customised.
Examples include activities that support early numeracy and
literacy skills. The advantage of using specially recorded
speech is that the material is culturally appropriate, in the
appropriate language and accent of the client. One example,
that was developed to grab the attention of a client, consisted
of a sequence of images, some of which had his name associated
with them.
Activities created from custom images and sound
A digital camera or scanner can be used to produce images for
Carousel. This allows images that are familiar to the client to
be entered into the system, for example family, friends, pets,
etc. This style of activity may be viewed as a talking
photograph album. This can be extended to make stories that
have characters (people, pets, and toys) that are relevant to
the clients. By using images taken by a digital camera and a
mixture of recorded speech, sound effects and music it is
possible to create quite sophisticated stories that clients
really enjoy.
The ability to display video sequences is used in an activity
designed to assist in teaching deaf-blind adults finger
spelling.
Other activities
The activities described above require the teacher/carer to
develop activities for use by the user. However, with Carousel
the user can, with assistance, have editorial control over an
activity. This gives the users the ability to create stories
and describe their activities. Carousel has been used by one
user in his annual educational review to describe his
activities, in pictures and sounds, over the previous year.
Carousel is also being used as the medium for displaying the
results of a story developed by a class of pupils.
Concluding Remarks
Carousel's activities consist of a simple sequence of images,
sounds and text and it is not really suitable for developing
more complex activities such as picture building or maze
solving. However, its very simplicity means that it can be
configured by teachers or carers who have limited time
available to them and only basic IT skills. This means that
users can be presented with activities that match their
interests and needs. At the time of writing Carousel has been
available to a relatively small number of people for about 6
months. It is interesting to note the range of activities that
have been developed for it to date; ranging from simple
attention grabbing activities to activities designed to assist
the teaching of finger spelling.
Carousel is easy to configure. The most time consuming element
of building a Carousel activity is the selection of images and
sounds. If these are specially captured, say by a digital
camera or by using the sound recording facilities of a
multimedia PC, they can be easily integrated into an activity.
However, where pre-existing images and sounds are used, finding
the right image or sound can take a considerable period of
time.
Carousel is public domain software, which may be freely used
and copied. A CD-ROM including Carousel, a range of Carousel
activities and a large set of image and sound resources will be
given to all attendees of this session. The Carousel program
and some example activities can also be accessed from http://CRESST.co.umist.ac.uk
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