ST. LOUIS—A handheld device that speaks for patients offers new hope to individuals who have difficulty communicating due to disorders such as autism, Down syndrome, or poststroke aphasia. Neurolinguist Filip Loncke, PhD, an Assistant Professor in the Communications Disorders Program of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, has the only research site in the United States using the apparatus—a bar-code reader called the B.A. Bar (pronounced BA-bar) that was developed in Switzerland by the Federation Suisse des Teletheses and made available there in 2001.

One of the advantages of the B.A. Bar is its versatility, related Dr. Loncke—it has been used with people ages 2 to 89 and has helped them learn or relearn how to speak and become more independent. Dr. Loncke and his research team are using it for several research and clinical applications.

The bar-code reader provides auditory feedback when passed over the same kind of black-and-white strip used on grocery store products. In this case, the device is first used to program the bar codes with words or phrases; the bar codes can then be fixed to objects, pictures, or places. The user scans the bar code with the device, which then says the word or phrase. Dr. Loncke’s research shows that the device is more helpful than simple pictures.

The bar-code reader is easy to use—an adult can learn how to operate it in one session, and a child with Down syndrome can become confident with it in six or seven sessions, said Dr. Loncke, who has been working with the B.A. Bar for two years. He has partnered with the Woodrow Wilson Rehabilitation Center in Fishersville, Virginia, to work with some of its clients.

Dr. Loncke related that after several sessions of training and practice, adults with aphasia were able to recover and pronounce significantly more words by listening to a bar-coded list than by reading a written list. "It may be an indication that the added modality by the speaking bar-code reader helped the participant in word retrieval," he said.

Speech and literacy skills are important objectives in the education and rehabilitation of individuals who use augmentative communication, Dr. Loncke said. "For this reason, it is important to find out how the use of a speech-generating communication device affects the development (and the use) of internal speech."

The device functions as "a great research tool" in furthering the understanding of how humans process language. Comparing use of the bar-code reader by people with normal speech to those with impairments, he has found that it does not replace the brain’s normal formation of language before it is spoken, for example.

NR

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