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Hi all,

We're a team of students at Penn State University in State College, PA. For our senior design project, we're trying to prototype new software/hardware to give emotions to the artificial voice assigned to ALS patients when they can no longer speak. To design something that aids all of you, we want your input! We'd love to hear stories about your every day life, your strengths, your limitations, the progression of your disease, what you want in an aid for speech, and more. In addition, we have a survey that would help a lot, if filled out. The survey is here: Augmentative Communication Survey .

Our team doesn't know a lot about ALS, as none of us have been affected by it. We think it's very important to have first hand knowledge only you can provide.

Thank you so much,
Maddy, Matt, Leonor, Richard, and Mary
 
Perhaps then, your research project should include general knowledge of als. Perhaps you could visit the neuro clinic that handles als and see for yourselves. This forum is not for solicitations because as caregivers we are exhausted and overwhelmed. As pals, typing a response can be extremely difficult and energy draining. You might want to work with local or instate clinics or support groups.
 
I did your survey.
 
I did it too Kim but I feel if try to come up with an aid, one must understand what they are trying to help or improve for a person. Reading about a disease is not the same as being in clinic or a support group and watching how people access a variety of communication tools.
 
I agree but they're undergraduates. If it were a team of grad students I'd expect more. It's hard for me to wrap my head around a team designing both hardware AND software for a senior project......but my nephew did design a sophisticated electric water vehicle for his Senior team project in engineering school, so who knows.

Maybe I'm wrong. I hope they report back to us with the results.
 
Thanks to both of you for completing the survey. We do wish we had more time for face to face interaction with people actually affected by ALS. We have a couple personal contacts that have been affected and we can see how they move and deal with every day life. Our timeline for the project is short and if we had more than 12 weeks, it would be of the utmost priority for us to go.

KimT you mentioned the complexity of the project and seeing how it gets completed. It is complicated and a lot to do, but you'll be happy to know that our preliminary research will not stop here. We are handing over all of our research, findings, and technology to the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center at Penn State, and if we have a solid base they will continue our development, and hopefully grow our project to reality.

Once again, thank you both for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer some questions for us. It means so much.
 
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