Date of Award

Fall 2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Electrical & Computer Engineering

Program/Concentration

Electrical Engineering

Committee Director

Jiang Li

Committee Member

Gianluca De Leo

Committee Member

Yuzhong Shen

Call Number for Print

Special Collections LD4331.E55 B387 2009

Abstract

The prevalence of autism, a complex neurobiological disorder, has grown at a staggering rate in the recent past. Today, one out of 150 American children is diagnosed with autism. Generally, the disorder appears during an individual's first three years of life of and persists through his/her entire life span. The individual faces various social interaction, communication and behavioral problems. Developmental disabilities, extreme withdrawal, lack of social behaviour, severe language and attention deficits, repetitive behaviours and limited interests are the characteristics of this disorder. There is no verified cure yet, but several therapies and intervention systems especially focused on the early years are able to bring substantial improvement in the quality of life a child with autism. The concept of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) has been applied to develop various intervention systems for groups of young children with autism. The basic system built on this principle is the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) where picture cards are exchanged with children for interaction. However, the intrinsic difficulties associated with the use of PECS such as the time needed to create a new laminated picture and to build a sentence is making the system futile. Even though existing electronic devices provide this feature, their complex operation, expensive nature and their inability to collecting data make them unsuitable for target users. In order to rectify these problems, this thesis developed an application named PixTalk is developed for Windows Smart-phone s. The touch-screen Smart-phone contains the images used for communication with children. The application is designed in such a way that the children can easily browse and choose the images to communicate with family members and teachers. A group of images can also be selected simultaneously to form a sentence and can be magnified using a display button. Teachers or parents can add and modify the images stored in the Smart-phone according to the needs of the specific child. Moreover, the PixTalk Communication System is designed based on the principle of a User-Centered Model; hence, system testing is done simultaneously with development. In addition, a companion website is developed for teachers to maintain, modify and share images belonging to a child. The Smart-phone maintains a log file to store the selection of images by children and this log can be uploaded onto the website. The data gathered from questionaires completed by teachers and log files obtained from the Smart-phone provide the necessary research information for researchers and therapists to analyze the condition of the child.

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DOI

10.25777/30pa-r193

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