Related papers: PicTalky: Augmentative and Alternative Communicati…
Non-native speakers (NNSs) face significant language barriers in multilingual communication with native speakers (NSs). While AI-mediated communication (AIMC) tools offer efficient one-time assistance, they often overlook opportunities for…
Advances in artificial intelligence have transformed the paradigm of human-computer interaction, with the development of conversational AI systems playing a pivotal role. These systems employ technologies such as natural language processing…
The objective of this paper is to describe the implication of an interdisciplinary team involved during a user-centered design methodology to design the platform (WebSoKeyTo) that meets the needs of therapists to design augmentative and…
As minimally verbal autistic (MVA) children communicate with parents through few words and nonverbal cues, parents often struggle to encourage their children to express subtle emotions and needs and to grasp their nuanced signals. We…
This paper presents an approach to enhancing Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) systems by integrating Colourful Semantics (CS) with transformer-based language models specifically tailored for Brazilian Portuguese. We…
People with visual impairments (PVI) use a variety of assistive technologies to navigate their daily lives, and conversational AI (CAI) tools are a growing part of this toolset. Much existing HCI research has focused on the technical…
Backchanneling (e.g., "uh-huh", "hmm", a simple nod) encompasses a big part of everyday communication; it is how we negotiate the turn to speak, it signals our engagement, and shapes the flow of our conversations. For people with speech and…
Automated Audio captioning (AAC) is a cross-modal task that generates natural language to describe the content of input audio. Most prior works usually extract single-modality acoustic features and are therefore sub-optimal for the…
This paper discusses the issue regarding Non-verbal Autism Spectrum Disorder. It has been observed that this mental disorder is listed in major parts of the world including the US, UK, and India. To mitigate this type of disorder, a wide…
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can profoundly affect reciprocal social communication, resulting in substantial and challenging impairments. One aspect is that for people with ASD conversations in everyday life are challenging due to…
Classifying the general intent of the user utterance in a conversation, also known as Dialogue Act (DA), e.g., open-ended question, statement of opinion, or request for an opinion, is a key step in Natural Language Understanding (NLU) for…
Speech is essential for human communication, yet millions of people face impairments such as dysarthria, stuttering, and aphasia conditions that often lead to social isolation and reduced participation. Despite recent progress in automatic…
In 1989, Light defined communicative competence for individuals with complex communication needs who require augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) as a dynamic, interpersonal construct based on functionality of communication,…
Speech, language, and communication deficits are present in most neurodegenerative syndromes. They enable the early detection, diagnosis, treatment planning, and monitoring of neurocognitive disease progression as part of traditional…
We present the design of an online social skills development interface for teenagers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The interface is intended to enable private conversation practice anywhere, anytime using a web-browser. Users…
Children in a large number of international and cross-cultural families in and outside of the US learn and speak more than one language. However, parents often struggle to acquaint their young children with their local language if the child…
Chat GPT belongs to the category of Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) language models, which have received specialized training to produce text based on natural language inputs. Its purpose is to imitate human-like conversation and…
Over the last two decades, technology use in language learning and teaching has significantly advanced and is now referred to as Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL). Recently, the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into CALL…
From dating to job interviews, making new friends or simply chatting with the cashier at checkout, engaging in small talk is a vital, everyday social skill. For adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), small talk can be particularly…
This work investigates the integration of generative visual aids in human-robot task communication. We developed GenComUI, a system powered by large language models that dynamically generates contextual visual aids (such as map annotations,…