Healthcare Technology Featured Article

November 20, 2013

AACORN iPad App Helps Developmentally Delayed Children to Better Communicate


These days, there are all kinds of different technological advances when it comes to helping out the hearing or speech impaired. Companies as large as AT&T have worked long and hard to make tools that can be used by people who might otherwise be left out in the technological cold. A new mobile application might just be taking the biggest steps forward yet when it comes to helping a special group of the mentally and physical handicapped. Revolutionary Concepts and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute created the AACORN application. Together, those two organizations came up with what is being billed as the first ever example of artificial intelligence geared towards helping children who are developmentally delayed communicate.

What makes this application truly special is that AACORN allows non-verbal and speech delayed children communicate at nearly the same speed and at nearly the same level as their peers. AACORN founder and creator Wayne Whatford explained how the application works in a recent statement saying, “It uses sophisticated Ai to learn about a child’s actual abilities, continually monitoring their communication patterns and learning to anticipate their needs and present words as they are needed, automatically!”

The release of this app comes at the same time that other companies are redicating themselves to helping the deaf better communicate in the technological world. While the tech world, with its big, sharp screens and easy to use keyboards can seem to be a roadblock free place; there are still obstacles to the deaf. Services such as 911 calls can still be hard to navigate without advancements like those that 911 Enable have brought.

Along those same lines, Whatford says that the communication assistance tools in the past have proven to actually be counter productive at times. The developer said that the early results of AACORN show that the predictive capabilities of the application rid non-verbal children for the need to hunt and peck for letters on a keyboard. The application’s AI allows the children to not only put words together, but also whole complex sentences. The application is currently available on the iOS platform for both the iPad and iPad Mini.




Edited by Cassandra Tucker
Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. [Free eNews Subscription]




SHARE THIS ARTICLE



FREE eNewsletter

Click here to receive your targeted Healthcare Technology Community eNewsletter.
[Subscribe Now]