Monday, October 16, 2017

The eyes have it: how technology allows you to speak when all you can do is blink

10:53 PM    
Steve, a software engineer, was diagnosed

with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a type of motor neurone disease) aged 50. He knew it was progressive and incurable; that he would soon become unable to move and, in his case, speak. He is using eye-gaze technology to tell me this (and later to turn off the sound of Bonnie Tyler); cameras pick up light reflection from his eye as he scans a screen. Movements of his pupils are translated into movements of a cursor through infrared technology and the cursor chooses letters or symbols. A speech-generating device transforms these written words into spoken ones – and, in turn, sentences and stories form.
Eye-gaze devices allow some people with limited speech or hand movements to communicate, use environmental controls, compose music, and paint. That includes patients with ALS – up to 80% have communication difficulties. Other conditions that can benefit from these devices include cerebral palsy, strokes, multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injuries. It’s a far cry from Elle editor-in-chief Jean-Dominique Bauby, locked-in by a stroke in 1995, painstakingly blinking through letters on an alphabet board. His memoir, written at one word every two minutes, later became a film, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Although some still use low-tech options (not everyone can meet the physical or cognitive requirements for eye-gaze systems; occasionally, locked-in patients can blink but cannot move their eyes), speech-to-text and text-to-speech functionality on smartphones and tablets has revolutionised communication.