Description and evaluation of a portuguese AAC System

Abstract

This paper describes the development and evaluation of an Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) System for the European Portuguese. The system works on top of the Windows operating system and it can interact with any application that requires keyboard input. The system is targeted to motor impaired users and offers two rate enhancement techniques: word prediction and abbreviation expansion. People with difficulties using a computer keyboard can use our system’s on-screen keyboard with different access methods. Aiming at reinforcing the user’s interaction, our system also includes an interface agent and a speech synthesizer. Each component of the system can be configured to the specific requirements of each user. Tests were carried out qualitatively, evaluating the performance with real users, and quantitatively, by using a simulator included in our system. These tests showed that our system can save up to 50% of user typing effort.