2023 Volume 26 Pages 89-100
Children with intellectual disabilities require communication aids such as communication cards and/or voice-output communication aids (VOCA) to help develop their communication abilities in education. We developed an augmented-reality (AR) -based VOCA, referred to as VCAN/AR, to attract the attention of children with severe intellectual disabilities that have no interest in using conventional tools. The proposed VCAN/AR includes a computer, an LCD, a webcam, loudspeakers, and picture-card markers. When the user’s hand hides one of the picture-card markers, the VCAN/AR system plays a sound corresponding to the marker and simultaneously displays an animated 3DCG symbol overlaid on the marker on the display. We performed an experiment involving one student and three kindergarteners with intellectual disabilities to verify the effectiveness of VCAN/AR on the user’s motivation for accomplishing the given tasks for communication training. The experiment results indicate that the AR-based symbols of VCAN/AR function as rewards that allow the three subjects to accomplish the given tasks. Thus, VCAN/AR can be used to motivate certain types of subjects to perform specific tasks.
