A gaze-based interaction system for people with cerebral palsy

In this paper we present the development of an augmentative system for people with movement disabilities ( mostly cerebral palsy people) to communicate with the people that surround them, through a human-computer interaction mechanism. We developed an assistive technology application based on gaze tracking in order to select symbols in communication boards, which represent words or ideas, so that they could easily create phrases for the patient's daily needs. This kind of communication boards is already used by cerebral palsy people, here we intend to extend their use for people with absolute no motor coordination. An important improvement of the proposed system with respect to the existing solutions is the ability to work in the presence of voluntary or involuntary head movements. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer review under responsibility of CENTERIS/SCIKA - Association for Promotion and Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge