Effectiveness of the haptic chair in speech training
The 'Haptic Chair' [3] delivers vibrotactile stimulation to several parts of the body including the palmar surface of the hand (palm and fingers), and has been shown to have a significant positive effect on the enjoyment of music even by the profoundly deaf. In this paper, we explore the effectiveness of using the Haptic Chair during speech therapy for the deaf. We conducted a 24-week study with 20 profoundly deaf users to validate our initial observations. The improvements in word clarity observed over the duration of this study indicate that the Haptic Chair has the potential to make a significant contribution to speech therapy for the deaf.
Pervasive computing comes to provide human-centric services, facilitating user interaction. These services are essentially context-aware which require complex, heterogeneous infrastructures containing numerous sensors and actuators configured for in-door environments, called ?smart spaces?. One challenge in expanding such services is the complexity of these environments, requiring a significant amount of time to set-up and configure. In this paper we introduce an approach for providing assistance to remote users who can interface with the smart space either by using mobile devices, or by using a cut-down version of the ?smart space? with only a few simple but essential sensors. Furthermore we describe how this approach has been incorporated in a prototype non-intrusive human-centric application, providing assistance in the case of meetings, lectures and presentations called ?Memory Jog?.