Optimizing Assisted Communication Devices for Children With Motor Impairments Using a Model of Information Rate and Channel Capacity

For children who depend on devices to communicate, the rate of communication is a primary determinant of success. For children with motor impairments, the rate of communication may be limited by inability to contact buttons or cells rapidly or accurately. It is therefore essential to know how to adjust the device interface in order to maximize each child's rate of communication. The optimal rate of communication is determined by the Channel Capacity, which is the maximum value of the Information Rate for all possible keyboard button or cell layouts for the communication device. We construct a mathematical model for the information rate based on the relationship between movement time and the number of buttons per screen, the size of the buttons, and the length of a sequence of buttons that must be pressed to communicate each word in the vocabulary. We measure the parameters of the model using a custom-programmed touch-screen interface.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Cerebral Palsy
• Intervention / Treatment: Device: reprogramming assisted communication device interface

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 29
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • California
    • Stanford, California, United States, 94305
      • Stanford University School of Medicine

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 5 years to 25 years (Child, Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:- Use of Dynavox ability to follow two-step commands impairment in arm function Exclusion Criteria:- increased risks of study

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm

Intervention / Treatment

Experimental: Children (with dystonia and controls); Participants sat in a chair or their own wheelchair in front of a table whose surface height was adjusted at the midpoint between the hip and the Xiphoid process. They placed the hand that was not used for the task on their lap. An iPad® (Apple Inc, Cupertino, California) was located on the table in portrait mode in front of the participants at a distance that ranged between 40 and 55 cm. An adjustable metal bookstand supported the iPad® to allow the participants a comfortable screen view. The size of the screen was 19.5 × 14.6 cm. Custom software was developed for the experimental task (XCode 3.2 development environment, iOS 4.2 operating system; Apple Inc, Cupertino, California).

Device: reprogramming assisted communication device interface; The subjects were required to touch targets on the iPad® screen with the index finger of their preferred (less-affected) arm. The experimental task consisted of 180 targets divided in 4 blocks: 45 targets each block with a 1-minute interval between trials to avoid fatigue. Targets appeared at 1 of 9 different locations on the screen, and subjects moved their finger sequentially from one target to the next.

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Southern California
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Terence D. Sanger, Stanford University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: January 1, 2006
• Primary Completion (Actual): December 1, 2014
• Study Completion (Actual): December 1, 2014

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: July 12, 2006
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 12, 2006
• First Posted (Estimate): July 14, 2006

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): May 19, 2017
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 18, 2017
• Last Verified: May 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Brain Diseases; Central Nervous System Diseases; Nervous System Diseases; Brain Damage, Chronic; Cerebral Palsy
• Other Study ID Numbers: FITTS PILOT

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No