Cutting-Edge Technology to Empower People with Speech Impairments and Limited
  Mobility 
From: University of Aberdeen - 09/04/2012
By: Jennifer Phillips 

University of Aberdeen researchers have developed software that enables
people with impaired speech and mobility to assign simple gestures to actions
they would like to be performed in their home. Wireless communication
technologies are used to link the software to devices in the home. "For some
people hand gestures are the only way of interacting with the environment
around them because of speech impairments and reduced mobility, as a result
of illness or an accident," says Aberdeen lecturer Ernesto Compatangelo. The
technology is based on the Portable Sign Language Translator (PSLT), which
helps users translate sign language into text. "In devising the PSLT, we
wanted to create software that enables independent living not only by
addressing the individualized communication needs of signers, but also their
ambient control needs," Compatangelo says. People using PSLT sign into a
standard camera integrated into a laptop, netbook, smartphone, or other
portable device. Their signs are immediately converted into text, which can
be read by the person they are conversing with. "Essentially any gesture can
be assigned to any given word," Compatangelo notes. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/details-13089.php

Links:
Portable Sign Language Translator
http://www.pslt.org/

Ernesto Compatangelo
http://www.csd.abdn.ac.uk/~ecompata/

Technabling
http://www.technabling.co.uk/index.html