by John M. Williams
The Eyegaze Communication System expands opportunities for people with high-level quadriplegia.
Imagine this situation.
You have a fertile, active, creative mind that craves to express itself. You have an idea for numerous books, but you can’t use a keyboard. You want to call a family member, but you can’t dial. You want to speak but lost the ability. You want to turn off a bright light but can’t move your fingers. Your only means of communicating to others is through the movement of your eyes. Do these limitations mean your life as an independent person is over? Or is there a liberating technology for you that will open your soul to the world?
Quadriplegic Thomas Keane posed these questions to me at the CSUN’s 19th Annual International Conference “Technology and Persons with Disabilities.” “Eyegaze technology can be your answer,” he told me as he left the LC Technologies booth where he demonstrated the program. Keane can’t use a regular keyboard, nor can he use a split keyboard-or any keyboard.
The Eyegaze Communication System empowers people with disabilities to communicate to the world using only the movement of their eyes. The hardware consists of a monitor, keyboard, screen and camera. Simply by looking at control keys displayed on a screen for a fraction of a second, users can perform multiple tasks such as speech synthesis, environmental control (controlling lights and appliances) typing, operating a telephone, accessing the Internet and running all Windows® software.
How it Works
To operate the Eyegaze System, the user sits two feet from screen with an Eyegaze camera focused on one eye. The camera located below the Eyegaze screen continually observes the user’s eye, and specialized image-processing software in the system determines where the user is looking on the screen. The system predicts the gaze point with an average accuracy of better than a quarter inch, enabling the user to control an on-screen computer keyboard.
According to Keane, he feels he could operate the program in a couple of minutes. And in less than an hour, he says, he could be performing all of the program’s activities. As for cost, he says, “The $14,000 cost is a little steep,” but he says if he decides to buy it, he can afford it.
According to Julie Cleveland, production engineer, LC Technologies, “Many insurance companies, Medicaid in states where LC Technologies is a provider and Medicare will pay for Eyegaze.” Headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, LC Technologies, Inc. developed the Eyegaze System.
For individuals concerned about wires being attached to their bodies they need not worry, unlike some Eyegaze systems that require a dot placed in the middle of the forehead, there is not anything attached to the user’s body. The Eyegaze System is even functional with most glasses and contacts.
Who are the people with disabilities benefiting from Eyegaze technology? Users include quadriplegics, individuals with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), individuals who have lost one arm or two, people with severe arthritis in their hands, and individuals with cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, Werdnig-Hoffman syndrome, brain injuries, and other motor disabilities.
Retired banker Joe Martin has ALS and he has written two books using Eyegaze. They are “On Any Given Day” and more recently “Fire in the Rock.” The first book covers his daily experiences dealing with ALS. The second is a novel about growing up in the South in the 1950s.
For Martin being productive, expressive and independent are important, personally and professionally. The Eyegaze program gives him those opportunities.
Speech Extension and Other Uses
For nonverbal users, Speaking Dynamically Pro is communication software that can be used with the system for speech output and to create interactive educational activities such as sentence building with symbols, text, picture and text display and interactive books.
Stored phrases provide communication for nonverbal users. Looking at a key causes a preprogrammed message to be spoken. “Messages can be composed and easily changed to adapt to the user’s needs,” says Cleveland.
Some of the phrases are “Hello,” “Good Bye,” “I’ve missed you,” and “Talk to me.”
The entire system is portable and easy to carry and can be used indoors and outside, but not in direct sunlight.
As with many products developed for people with disabilities, the Eyegaze has multiple uses. For example, diagnosing reading disabilities has traditionally been very difficult, primarily because the diagnostician has no means for observing what a person is doing with his eyes as he reads. Eye-tracking systems offer a tool for quantitatively measuring and recording what a person does with his eyes as he reads. The result is a hard-copy graphic representation of the trace of the person’s gaze point superimposed on the text he has read.
Potentially analogous to electrocardiograms or electroencephalograms, there are characteristic patterns of eye motion that are symptomatic of specific reading disabilities. And subsequent to diagnosis, eye-tracking systems may prove useful in evaluating a person’s progress through reading therapy.
There is also a military use. The military sponsored much of the early research and development on eye-tracking systems, and one of their primary objectives was to aid pilots in their weapons control. A pilot’s hands are typically busy flying the plane, so the task of operating weapons systems at the same time can be quite difficult, particularly if flying in one direction and shooting in another. Eye-tracking systems allow the pilots to observe and select targets with their eyes while flying the plane and firing the weapons with their hands.
Future applications include monitoring student pilots’ eyes in training simulators, which can help instructors determine whether the pilots are developing good scan patterns and whether they look at the right places when they get into certain situations such as landing or emergencies. Similarly, the technology can be used to monitor airport traffic controllers. Eye-tracking can ensure that each controller is routinely scanning his screen and not missing any aircraft.
There is also the potential for integration of the current Eyegaze technology into arcade, video and games of chance.
For more information or to view the Eyegaze system, visit www.eyegaze.com. Or write or call LC Technologies, Inc. offices at:
9455 Silver King Court
Fairfax, Virginia 22031-4713
Voice: 1-703-385-7133 or 1-800-EYEGAZE (800-393-4293)
E-mail: info0309@eyegaze.com
John Williams has been writing about assistive technology for 25 years. A sample of his book Assistive Technologies: Creating a Universe of Opportunities for People with Disabilities can be seen at www.atn-ctcf.org.
