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Communication Needs of Individuals with Aphasia and Caregivers in Unplanned Activities

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Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction (HCII 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14021))

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Abstract

People with Aphasia (PWA) have communication difficulties that affect their daily activities and ability to live independently and increase the risk of social isolation. Most of their daily activities are planned and primarily performed in familiar settings or with familiar people. Augmented and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices can support communication for PWA and their family and carers during everyday life. However, managing new activities in an unfamiliar setting with unfamiliar people would subject PWA to stressful situations in which they could feel less confident and unable to communicate. In these situations, the benefits of AAC devices can be diminished. Therefore, a new approach is needed that can support individuals with aphasia and their families or carers in unplanned activities, but to be effective, this approach must be grounded in the unmet needs of PWA and co-designed with them. For this purpose, we conducted user studies to understand our users’ information and communication needs. Our results show that (1) the most used and appreciated communication aid amongst PWA is photos; (2) personal photos reflect people’s favourite locations, events they enjoy discussing, and friends they enjoy spending time with; (3) they are therefore the ideal starting point for a context-aware AAC. This work contributes to the literature on the design of context-aware systems for individuals with aphasia, and the results will help inform the design of a new AAC.

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Acknowledgement

We want to thank our participants from the Geriatric and Stroke Medicine (GSM) department at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals and the rehabilitation centre at Abdul Latif Jameel Hospital, with special thanks to Philippa Hedley-Takhar for the support in recruiting aphasic individuals and Shaun Kane for assisting with this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S1 4DP, UK

    Lula Albar & Vitaveska Lanfranchi

  2. Information School, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S1 4DP, UK

    Suvodeep Mazumdar

Authors
  1. Lula Albar
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  2. Vitaveska Lanfranchi
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  3. Suvodeep Mazumdar
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Correspondence to Lula Albar .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Foundation for Research and Technology, Heraklion, Crete, Greece

    Margherita Antona

  2. Foundation for Research and Technology, Heraklion, Crete, Greece

    Constantine Stephanidis

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Albar, L., Lanfranchi, V., Mazumdar, S. (2023). Communication Needs of Individuals with Aphasia and Caregivers in Unplanned Activities. In: Antona, M., Stephanidis, C. (eds) Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. HCII 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14021. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35897-5_35

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35897-5_35

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-35896-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-35897-5

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