A new tool to support interactive narrative experience for children with communication disorders (original) (raw)

Using NLG and sensors to support personal narrative for children with complex communication needs

2010

We are building a tool that helps children with Complex Communication Needs 1 (CCN) to create stories about their day at school. The tool uses Natural Language Generation (NLG) technology to create a draft story based on sensor data of the child's activities, which the child can edit. This work is still in its early stages, but we believe it has great potential to support interactive personal narrative which is not well supported by current Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) tools. 1 The term Complex Communication Needs (CCN) describes individuals who, due to motor, language, cognitive, and/or sensory perceptual impairments (e.g., as a result of cerebral palsy), do not develop speech and language skills as expected. This heterogeneous group typically experiences restricted access to the environment, limited interactions with their communication partners, and few opportunities for communication (Light and Drager 2007).

Personal storytelling: Using Natural Language Generation for children with complex communication needs, in the wild…

International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2016

This paper describes a Natural Language Generation system (NLG), How was School Today? that automatically creates a personal narrative from sensor data and other media (photos and audio). It can be used by children with complex communication needs in schools to support interactive narrative about personal experiences. The robustness of story generation to missing data was identified as a key area for improvement in a feasibility study of the system at a first special needs school. This paper therefore suggests three possible methods for generating stories from unstructured data: clustering by voice recording, by location, or by time. Clustering based on voice recordings resulted in stories that were perceived as most easy to read, and to make most sense, by parents in a quantitative evaluation. This method was implemented in the live system, which was developed and evaluated iteratively at a second special needs school with children with different usage profiles. Open challenges and possibilities for nlg in augmented and alternative communication are also discussed.

Development of Software that Supports Young Children’s Narrative Productions

2008

In this study, I created a tablet PC application to support children’s narrative skills, which begins to develop actively at around the age of five and a half years. My aim is to stimulate storytelling to increase the event categories of protocol and to support causal relationships among sentences. After reviewing the relevant previous research, I considered the support methods and developed the necessary functions. To investigate the effectiveness of this software, I conducted an experiment to compare the story protocols of five-year-old children. One group used paper crafts and the other used the software. The results showed that the proposed system stimulates storytelling and increases the event categories in the protocol of each story. In particular, the causality of a character’s emotional state is improved by using a function to change facial expressions. Children can also use causal relationships and compose stories that are easy to understand.

Multi-user Narrative Sharing System for Children with Chronic Illness

… 2009. ICALT 2009. Ninth IEEE International …, 2009

In our project, we are developing a system that facilitates the hospitalized children with chronic illness to narrate and share their stories. In this system, children aged K-6 th grade can create their own and coconstruct narratives with peers and bedside teachers in a multi-user environment.

Towards a model of technology and literacy development: Story listening systems

Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 2004

This article lays out a program of research designed to address one specific need of young children-to learn how to write-based on one specific ability of young children-the ability to tell stories. The model underlying this research program describes how non-screen-and-keyboard-based technologies that listen to children can be used to support their emergent literacy behaviors and have an effect on their subsequent writing skills. Four components comprise the model: the importance of emergent literacy behaviors, which are features of literate language that are demonstrated in children's oral language; the critical role played by a socially situated peer; the design of non-keyboard-based computational technologies; and the potential of information technologies that encourage construction rather than consumption. This article presents information about one kind of technology that fits the model-the story listening system (SLS)-and describes a number of implemented SLS and an evaluation of their use by children.

A Text to Image Story Teller Specially Challenged Children - Natural Language Processing Approach

2015

Every human relishes happiness when he or she becomes a creator. This happiness does not have any metrics. A person who plants a tree, to a person who works on the most complicated flight engines feels happy on his creation. The work attempted in this paper is to make children the creators. Children have wonderful capabilities to create and innovate new things. Specially challenged children are equally talented in their own way. Challenged children identified with capability outperform everybody in their competitive line. This research work is an application which can be used by such children which kindles their creativity and helps them showcase their abilities. These children can create their own pictorial story board in a fashion as it comes to their mind. The text story is handled as a natural language input and translated to a scrolling layer of images, which are picked by the user.

Interactive storytelling: interacting with people, environment, and technology

International Journal of Arts and Technology, 2014

Stories are an important part of children's social and cognitive development and can be an integral part of their lives. In this paper, we share a short synopsis of Mobile Stories, one of the narrative systems we have developed with and for children. We also share lessons we have learned while designing, developing, and evaluating Mobile Stories. In designing and developing narrative systems for children, we advocate using iterative co-design (specifically cooperative inquiry). While designing a product, it is important to keep in mind key characteristics of interactive storytelling systems; such systems should encourage and enable creativity, interactivity with the environment via movement and mobility, and interactivity between users. When evaluating interactive storytelling systems, evaluators should consider the different story tasks of reading, creating, and sharing.

S ^{2}CCC^{2}:TowardanApptoSupportSocialStory: Toward an App to Support Social Story:TowardanApptoSupportSocialStory^\mathrm{TM}$$ Comprehension Checking in Children with ASD

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2019

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have difficulties with social communication and interaction. Social Stories TM are a well-known intervention to help them overcome these difficulties. During these interventions, practitioners must check children's understanding of various concepts that are taught. However, this activity-comprehension checking-is often skipped as practitioners find it difficult and time consuming. Our project explores how a technology-based tool (the S 2 C 2 app) can be designed and developed to support Social Story TM comprehension checking in children with ASD (aged 7-12) by involving typically developing children (TD) and experts in ASD and HCI. An initial pilot evaluation with sixteen TD children and five experts in ASD and HCI suggested that the S 2 C 2 app provides appropriate engaging activities for children and facilitates Social Story TM comprehension checking. However, caution must be taken in extending the results and more studies involving children with ASD are planned to be conducted in the future.

Informing the Design of an Authoring Tool for Developing Social Stories

2013

Abstract. This paper describes the design of an authoring tool, ISISS (Improving Social Interaction through Social Stories), for supporting practitioners using social stories to enhance social interaction in children with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC). The goals of the research are: 1) to determine practitioners’ current procedures when working with social stories; 2) to discover how technology can better support such practitioners in the development and use of social stories that focus on improving children’s social communication skills. An exploratory study was conducted with experienced practitioners, resulting in a number of design principles. Two low-functioning prototypes were developed, and explored in a second study. Further work is discussed.