SIGCAPH Annual Report
July, 1995 - June, 1996
Submitted by: Ephraim P. Glinert
By far the major event for the SIG during the past year was ASSETS'96, the Second International ACM/SIGCAPH Conference on Assistive Technologies, which was held April 11-12, 1996 at the Waterfront Centre Hotel in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Like ASSETS'94, it was a small, intimate conference where a group of 66 people got together to share ideas and report on their latest work in computer-based systems for people with disabilities. ASSETS'96 was truly an international event, with attendees from ten countries (USA 35, UK 11, Canada 6, Japan 4, Germany 3, Netherlands 3, Greece 1, Saudi Arabia 1, Sweden 1, and Switzerland 1). Academia, government agencies, and industrial research and development laboratories were all well represented.
ASSETS'96 followed the single track format which attendees of ASSETS'94 had enthusiastically supported. As in Marina del Rey, all meals, a welcoming reception (which turned out to actually be a full dinner!), as well as both mid-morning and afternoon snacks, were provided as an integral part of the meeting. This gave participants ample time to renew friendships made at ASSETS'94, as well as to welcome newcomers to the group. The technical papers covered topics such as problems faced by persons with disabilities in using the world wide web, vision and hearing impairment issues, the user interface and multimedia. There was also a panel discussion about how to better design the web for use by people with disabilities.
An exciting keynote talk was given in the opening session on Thursday morning by Dr. David Rose from the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) in Massachusetts. The title of his presentation was ``Beyond Assistive Technology: Universal Design Goes to School.'' David described Wiggleworks, an interactive program to teach reading to children in the early grades that was designed so as to include students with a variety of disabilities. The program is attractive to all class members, who find it fun to use thanks to its blend of graphics, animation and music. It has become an effective learning tool for early childhood skill development in reading, writing, drawing and the creation of interactive stories. This is another example of how helping persons with disabilities can benefit everyone.
In the following paragraphs, we provide a brief overview of just three of the papers presented at the conference. Naturally, this is only a very small sample of the rich variety of topics that were discussed.
USER INTERFACE. Enhancing Scanning Input with Non-Speech Sounds People who use scanning as their primary method of input to a computer are normally presented with a grid of items (usually pictures) on screen. Stephen A. Brewster of Great Britain presented a paper where nonspeech sounds, called earcons, were used to enhance this highly visual task. The goal of the research effort is to allow a speech-motor or language-cognitive impaired person to rapidly create a synthetic speech message, thereby enhancing his/her ability to communicate effectively. The scanning process typically involves the computer moving through the grid of choices, highlighting one row at a time; when a row is chosen by the user pressing a switch, the scan then moves through that row item by item until the switch is pressed again to select the desired item. By including nonspeech audio, a scanning rhythm can be created. It is expected that the user can take advantage of this to speed up the selection process, because of the natural ability to process rhythm on a temporal basis instead of visually, so that he/she can predict when the scan will be moving on to the next row or item. So far, only informal system testing has been done, but preliminary data are encouraging.ASSETS'96 immediately preceded CHI'96, ACM's conference on computer-human interaction. ASSETS'97 is tentatively scheduled for September 1997 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, although it may be necessary to change the dates and/or location if we once again want to immediately precede another conference on related topics (one possibility currently being considered is Closing The Gap in Minneapolis.) Art Karshmer of NMSU has agreed to serve as General Chair of ASSETS'97, and Meera Blattner of UC-Davis/LLNL will be Program Chair. For the most up to date information, and for more details about the papers presented at ASSETS'96, please browse the conference website (of which we're very proud) at http://www.cs.rpi.edu/assets which is maintained at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute by G. Bowden Wise.EARLY CHILD DEVELOPMENT. EVA, an Early Vocalization Analyzer: An Empirical Validity Study of Computer Vocalization Harriet Fell and Linda J. Ferrier of Northeastern University presented their work on infant vocalization (commonly known as baby babbling) and how it relates to later child development of articulation and language skills. They have developed a computer program capable of automatically analyzing the prelinguistic utterances of an infant. Through testing of recorded segments of baby babbling, the computer analysis was found to be in close correspondence with that of a highly trained human analyst. It is hoped that this work will lead to a system that can be used to identify infants who run a high risk of developing speech and language disorders. It may also be beneficial in the early diagnosis of some neurological disorders, hearing problems, cognitive or motor deficits, and inadequate environmental stimulation.
VISUAL DISABILITIES. AudioGraf: A Diagram-Reader for the Blind As part of a PhD research project in Switzerland, Andrea R. Kennel has created a system called AudioGraf. It is a diagram reader that uses audio feedback to guide a visually impaired user around a touchscreen display, thereby allowing him/her to understand highlights of interesting parts of flowchart-like diagrams. The advantage of this system over completely tactile diagram readers is that it is very inexpensive, requiring only a PC with a basic sound card and simple touchscreen. The flowchart elements recognized by AudioGraf include frames, connections and text; distinguishable attributes include position, size, shape, color, font and nodes (connection points between frames.) Andrea showed a video of her system in action. As the user's finger moves around the screen, different elements are identified using sounds and spoken words. Preliminary tests indicate that this is a worthwhile avenue of research to pursue.
Another exciting development for SIGCAPH was the election of new officers for two year terms beginning in July, 1995. Julie Baca of the Waterways Experiment Station in Clinton (MS) was elected Vice Chair, Harriet Fell of Northeastern University in Boston was elected Treasurer, and Ephraim P. Glinert was re-elected Chair. Julie and Harriet have undertaken their new duties with great enthusiasm, and we are confident that our new team will provide the SIG with renewed strength and vigor. David Leserman, our former Treasurer, chose not to run for re-election but graciously agreed to serve as treasurer for ASSETS'96. David played a truly key role in bringing our SIG to where it is today, and we look forward to his continued active and capable participation for many years to come.
A matter that has been of concern to the SIG for some time is that our newsletter, which is a key member benefit, wasn't appearing on a regular basis, and when it did come out the contents often weren't of the quality or quantity we wanted and expected. Despite the good intentions of Carl Friedlander, our previous editor, personal reasons and a busy work schedule combined to create a strain which made it difficult for him to continue to serve SIGCAPH in this capacity. We are therefore very pleased that we now have Art Karshmer on board as our new editor. Art is full of energy. He has given the Newsletter a new look, and is committed to publishing a fat, high quality issue like clockwork on a quarterly basis (indeed, our problem now is to convince Art to stay within the allotted page limit for each issue!) Even as we look forward to working with Art, we also appreciate Carl's past efforts on behalf of the SIG and hope that he will remain involved in other ways in the years ahead.
Respectfully submitted, July 1996.
--- Ephraim P. Glinert
