Zobrazit v EDS

Helping or Homogenizing? GenAI as a Design Partner to Pre-Service SLPs for Just-in-Time Programming of AAC.

Uloženo v:

Podrobná bibliografie
Název:	Helping or Homogenizing? GenAI as a Design Partner to Pre-Service SLPs for Just-in-Time Programming of AAC.
Autoři:	Zastudil, Cynthia, Holyfield, Christine, Kapp, Christine, Hamilton, Kate, Baru, Kriti, Newsam, Liam, Smith, June A., MacNeil, Stephen
Zdroj:	ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility; 2025, p1-18, 18p
Témata:	ASSISTIVE technology, GENERATIVE artificial intelligence, COMMUNICATION devices for people with disabilities, USER-centered system design, SPEECH-language pathology, MEANS of communication for people with disabilities, HUMAN-computer interaction, AUTISM spectrum disorders
Abstrakt:	Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices are used by many people around the world who experience difficulties in communicating verbally. One form of AAC device which is especially useful for minimally verbal autistic children in developing language and communication skills is the visual scene display (VSD). VSDs use images with interactive hotspots embedded in them to directly connect language to real-world contexts which are meaningful to the AAC user. While VSDs can effectively support emergent communicators (i.e., those who are beginning to learn how to use symbolic communication), their widespread adoption is impacted by how difficult these devices are to configure. We developed a prototype that uses generative AI to automatically suggest initial hotspots on an image to help non-experts efficiently create visual scene displays (VSDs). We conducted a within-subjects user study to understand how effective our prototype is in supporting non-expert users, specifically pre-service speech-language pathologists (SLPs) (N=16) who are not familiar with VSDs as an AAC intervention. Pre-service SLPs are actively studying to become clinically certified SLPs and have domain-specific knowledge about language and communication skill development. We evaluated the effectiveness of our prototype based on creation time, quality, and user confidence. We also analyzed the relevance and developmental appropriateness of the automatically generated hotspots and how often users interacted with (e.g., editing or deleting) the generated hotspots. Our results were mixed with SLPs becoming more efficient and confident. However, there were multiple negative impacts as well, including over-reliance and homogenization of communication options. The implications of these findings reach beyond the domain of AAC, especially as generative AI becomes more prevalent across domains, including assistive technology. Future work is needed to further identify and address these risks associated with integrating generative AI into assistive technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
	Copyright of ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility is the property of Association for Computing Machinery and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
Databáze:	Biomedical Index

Popis
Abstrakt:	Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices are used by many people around the world who experience difficulties in communicating verbally. One form of AAC device which is especially useful for minimally verbal autistic children in developing language and communication skills is the visual scene display (VSD). VSDs use images with interactive hotspots embedded in them to directly connect language to real-world contexts which are meaningful to the AAC user. While VSDs can effectively support emergent communicators (i.e., those who are beginning to learn how to use symbolic communication), their widespread adoption is impacted by how difficult these devices are to configure. We developed a prototype that uses generative AI to automatically suggest initial hotspots on an image to help non-experts efficiently create visual scene displays (VSDs). We conducted a within-subjects user study to understand how effective our prototype is in supporting non-expert users, specifically pre-service speech-language pathologists (SLPs) (N=16) who are not familiar with VSDs as an AAC intervention. Pre-service SLPs are actively studying to become clinically certified SLPs and have domain-specific knowledge about language and communication skill development. We evaluated the effectiveness of our prototype based on creation time, quality, and user confidence. We also analyzed the relevance and developmental appropriateness of the automatically generated hotspots and how often users interacted with (e.g., editing or deleting) the generated hotspots. Our results were mixed with SLPs becoming more efficient and confident. However, there were multiple negative impacts as well, including over-reliance and homogenization of communication options. The implications of these findings reach beyond the domain of AAC, especially as generative AI becomes more prevalent across domains, including assistive technology. Future work is needed to further identify and address these risks associated with integrating generative AI into assistive technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
DOI:	10.1145/3663547.3746384