NSF-Funded Student Design Projects:
Multimedia Assessment Tool for Children with Disabilities

Designers: Ganesh Babu Chelliah, RamanaPrabhu Lokanathan, Vijay Gummadi
Client Coordinators: Patricia Nizio, Detroit Institute for Children
Supervisor: Dr. Robert Erlandson
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI 48202
 

INTRODUCTION
The Detroit Institute for Children (DIC) provides disabled children in the Metro Detroit area with specialized medical, dental, and rehabilitative care as well as high-tech adaptive equipment. Therapists and teachers at the DIC have difficulty assessing the language and mathematics competencies of severely multiply impaired children because standardized assessment test typically require (1) generalization of skills beyond the scope of the assessment tests, (2) generalizing from concrete examples to abstracted drawings, (3) verbalizing the answers, and (4) pointing in some way to respond. Such requirements are beyond the physical and motor capacities of many DIC clients. Therefore, a multi-purpose, multimedia based computer system for early language and mathematics knowledge/skills has been designed to allow staff to evaluate such skills in this population.

SUMMARY OF IMPACT
The children using the Multimedia Assessment Tool (MAT) at the Detroit Institute for Children are primarily between the ages of five and fifteen years and have severely limited physical capabilities due to Cerebral Palsy and Quadriplegia. Due to these disabilities, most of these students cannot sit independently, walk, or use their hands to communicate. The children can, however, use MAT to demonstrate what they know of a particular vocabulary group, such as "animals" or "objects," by simply activating a switch to select pictures scanned across a screen. This activity allows staff to determine each child's level of receptive language development and provides the children with the opportunity to demonstrate what they are capable of given the appropriate forms of assistive technology. MAT also allows the children to practice the motor skills associated with listening, watching, and maintaining attention that are necessary for operating computers and improving communication skills.

TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION
The Multimedia Assessment Tool is a computer-based tool designed in Visual Basic 5.0 that runs a series of tests designed to assess the cognitive capacities of children with disabilities. The tests are based on the children's ability to identify objects, shapes, colors, language structures, and descriptive concepts. The software has the ability to run sessions based on different categories (such as animals, objects, or shapes) as well as at different levels of difficulty. For example, in the exercise shown in Figure One, the program displays four different animals.

A verbal prompting mechanism linked to that exercise instructs the student to identify one particular animal from the set. An automated, speed-adjustable scanning procedure highlights each object at a steady rate, allowing children to make a selection with a single switch or a mouse when their choice is highlighted. If their selection is correct, the program will move to the next exercise. If the choice is incorrect, the same exercise will be repeated. Verbal prompting is provided to maintain the children's attention and to guide them through each exercise.

The number of pictures displayed in the program depends on the level of difficulty specified by the staff. As the level of difficulty decreases, the student is required to choose among a fewer number of pictures. The system also allows staff to create user-defined session settings to meet the needs of individual students. These settings include the color of the highlight scan, width of the highlight scan, image scan time, image delay time, and the number of scans over each image before session termination.

MAT can be run in two different modes: learning mode and assessment mode. In the learning mode, the student's learning process is reinforced by repeated voice prompts and the display of the correct picture in the case of a wrong selection by a student. In the assessment mode, software does not correct the student in the case of an incorrect selection. Rather, the system records all details of the selections made, the time taken to make each selection, and which picture was selected. Data collected during the assessment mode can then be tabulated and displayed in graphical form by MAT's multi-functional report generator.

In addition to the report generator, MAT maintains a database of student and staff information. This database offers controlled access to student test and medical information, which is available via password only to staff members assigned to that student. While preparing MAT sessions for their assigned students, staff may record new audio prompts, overwrite existing audio prompts, and play existing audio prompts. This feature also contains a preview of the images associated with each audio file, allowing staff to preview the MAT settings before starting the session.

To function optimally, MAT requires a Pentium-grade CPU with Windows 95, 98, or NT, a color monitor, a single-switch (if a mouse will not be used), and computer speakers. If staff wish to add or replace photos in the system, a digital camera or scanning device will also be necessary.

[View more sample screens of ETLMAT]