A snapshot diary to support conversational storytelling for persons with aphasia

Abstract

In this paper we present the design of an application that supports conversational storytelling for people with aphasia. Camelendar is a touch screen application that supports people with aphasia in expressive storytelling. Camelendar utilizes photos to support people with aphasia talking about their daily activities; participants of the conversation (including the aphasic person) add comments and detailed information to the photos, enriching the story each time it is told. By arranging photos visually on a calendar people with aphasia can navigate to photos of events they want to talk about. The photos of the events transform into stories by adding tags and comments directly on the photos.

TalkingTiles

“…Finally, there is little awareness of aphasia within the general public [8,23], making it difficult for individuals to engage with the community through SCA. These limitations have motivated research into assistive technologies that can enable individuals with aphasia to engage in conversation more independently [3,5,7,18,26].…”

“…For example, Allen et al [3] developed PhotoTalk, an application that allows individuals with aphasia to capture and manage photos, which could then be used to facilitate communication related to the day's events, their family, and hobbies. Daemen et al [7], Camelendar [26], and CoCreation [18] take a similar approach for sharing and story-telling tasks. While initial feedback for these prototypes has been positive, researchers have noted trade-offs between customization and usability that often vary significantly among participants, since individuals' capabilities vary according to their severity of aphasia.…”

“…These technologies enable individuals who may otherwise be unable to communicate to participate and engage with those around them. For example, prototype systems have been developed to support communication for individuals living with Alzheimer's disease [6,14], memory impairments [27], and disorders such as aphasia [5,7,26]. However, the emergence of 'Post-PC' interactive surfaces, such as smartphones and tablets, has created new opportunities to develop more personal and more powerful AAC tools.…”

“…Interactive surfaces provide an opportunity for novel, accessible interaction appropriate for AAC applications, and are displacing existing, and often less accessible computer infrastructure such as desktop PCs. In embracing these opportunities for surface interaction, commercially available apps are implementing research outcomes from the HCI literature [3,26]. Given the knowledge translation that has taken place, we wanted to explore how lessons learned through research conducted on early mobile devices carries over to modern applications and devices, and to understand the new roles that they are are playing in facilitating AAC.…”

“…We chose to focus on individuals with aphasia, a communication disorder caused by damage to areas of the brain controlling language, because of the established related research and availability of design considerations in the literature [3,5,7,18,26]. After training participants in the use of the software, we asked them to use the app over a one week period to understand how it fulfilled their daily communication needs.…”