Abstract
Written communication is essential in today's information-based society. In Japan, research and development of writing aids for the severely physically disabled has been really achieved in this decade. Because of complexity of the Japanese language, a writing aid which could handle all Japanese letters and characters has not been developed yet. In addition, existing Japanese writing aids have few flexible functions to meet with user's need for selection technique, processing, and developmental progress of physical/cognitive/linguistic skills.
Over the past few years, we have endeavored to develop a practical Japanese writing aid which meet these needs. As the first result of our activities, a personal computer based Japanese word-processor with scanning method was developed and became commercially available in 1989.
The follwing items are obtained through the questionnaires sent to 97 facilitates and persons that have been using the Japanese word-processor.
(1) Most of users' diseases are the Cerebral Palsy (CP) and the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).
(2) Over half of the CP answer that the operation of the Japanese word-processor, especially on the KANAKANJI transferring and the editing function, is difficult strategy for them. On the other hand, over half of the ALS answer that the operation is not so difficult for them. There is significant difference between the answers from the CP and ones from the ALS.
(3) In the adaptation of electronic aids such as writing aids, the selection of a most suitable operation switch for a prospective user is one of essential factors.
(4) For modification of the existing functions and creating the other functions, the application of a personal computer to a writing aid is well considered as “appropriate technology”.
In the future, more accurate assessment of each skill and analysis of the Japanese language will be necessary to develop more sophisticated Japanese word-processor for the severely physically disabled. Other fast selection techniques will be also necessary for getting an increased level of independence.
