Mobile AAC Application for Sentence Creation Team Members: Kevin Greene, Christina Fries, Wei Liao, Hien Huynh, Jiho Kim, Apoorva Dewangan Mentor: James Han

What is AAC? Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) refers to communication that expresses our thoughts without oral speech. People with speech problems rely on AAC through facial expressions, gestures, symbols, pictures, and text. AAC aids help disabled people interact socially, learn interactively, and communicate effectively. Information acquired from American Speech-Language-Hearing Association:

Statistics 6 to 8 million people in the United States have some form of language impairment. (National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders) 2.6 million people 15 and older have some difficulty having their speech understood by others. (2002 Census Disability Report) 610,000 are unable to have their speech understood at all. (2002 Census Disability Report)

Products in the Market Proloquo2Go DynaVox Xpress AAC aids currently in the market are expensive, even though they have simple functionality. Images acquired from Image acquired from

Open Source AACDroid Open source AACDroid implements a decision tree structure that allows users to construct sentences by choosing pictures in a sequence. Originally created in Java for the Google Android, the AACDroid program, with its simple but powerful code, can be modified for use with any platform. Image acquired from

How AACDroid Program Works Edit Item (Optional) Image to Speech CategoryHome Choose Category: Basics, Activity, Expression Basics: Choose Image “Hello”Change name Change statement “Goodbye” Activity: Choose Image “I am hungry” Expression: Choose Image “I am happy”

Program Features Functions in modern mobile smart phones, which have become increasingly popular. Integrates simple user interface into sophisticated framework. Provides image-to-speech conversion. Supported by extensive documentation. Images acquired from Graph acquired from

Challenges Learning Java, and Android SDK from scratch Learning how AAC algorithms work and are used Converting from Windows to Google API Text to speech implementation Time

Future Improvements In the future, the open source community can focus on creating: A physical display of images that make up the user’s sentence. A more extensive list of categories, items, and voices. Complex sentences, including choices for parts of speech, prepositional phrases, and conjunctions. Multi-lingual support Word prediction tools Zoom options