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Your weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist people with disabilities and special needs.
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This is Narayanan Ramakrishnan and I’m the CEO of Avaz Inc, creators of Avaz AAC, Free Speech and freedom. And this is your Assistive Technology Update.Josh Anderson:
Hello, and welcome to your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 489 of Assistive Technology Update, it’s scheduled to be released on October 9th, 2020.
Josh Anderson:
On today’s show we have the conclusion of our conversation with the CEO of Avaz, Narayanan Ramakrishnan. We also have a story about a company making new sound environments to help out with focus, attention, and sleep. A story out of Berkeley about the importance of learning differently during the pandemic, as well as a couple of stories about new ways that voting is becoming accessible for folks in some States. We want to thank you so much for taking the time to listen to us today and without any further ado, let’s go ahead and get on with the show.
Josh Anderson:
Hey there folks, I’m very excited to announce that we’ve been able to revamp our entire INDATA website. So if you go over to eastersealstech.com, that’s eastersealstech.com, you can check out our whole new website. We tried to make it a little bit more accessible, a little bit easier to find the information that you might be looking for, a little bit easier to direct you straight to this show. But I guess if you’re listening to this show to find out about the website, you probably don’t really need that help. But you can find out about our clinical services, our AFP program, our loan library, our device demonstration, our depot, and all the other great services that INDATA does. You can also find your local AT act in your state, straight there from our website. So if you have a little bit of extra time on your hands and you want to find out more about the INDATA project, about our YouTube channel, our podcasts, or the other services that we offer, just head on over to eastersealstech.com and check out our whole new website.
Josh Anderson:
So our first [inaudible 00:02:32] today comes to us from TechCrunch and it’s titled, Endel raises $5 million to create personalized sound environments that improve productivity and sleep. It’s by Anthony Ha, and I want to just warn you that this is not actually assistive technology, but it is technology that I could see how in the future could definitely be assistive. This essentially Endel, and it’s E-N-D-E-L, is a company that makes this technology that really can help folks focus, relax, and even sleep. So, we’re still doing that with different sounds and kind of different soundscapes or sound environments. [inaudible 00:03:07] when they first started out their idea was, “Hey, let’s build a machine, have ambient music. Folks are using Calm, other apps like that in order to kind of meditate, to calm down, to be more productive, to stay on task, to do all these other kind of things.” Then they realized that, “Hey, what if we could make this personalized.” Not just have one song, one playlist, one soundscape, but really kind of make it depend on the environment of the individual.
Josh Anderson:
And it says that with their Endel Pacific technology creates is actually sound environments. And these can help you with all different kinds of needs, be that focusing, sleeping, relaxing, or just kind of when you’re on the go. And then those environments that it shapes are kind of made up by things that are around the individual, so the time of day, the weather, the users’ heart rate, the kind of motion they’re in, all of these things are taken into account when making these soundscapes in order to help the person do what it is that they’re trying to accomplish during that time.
Josh Anderson:
It says that Endel’s approach draws on several different areas of science, including research around circadian rhythms, so this is kind of your daily sleep cycle, pentatonic scale, so that it sounds are pleasant and sound masking, so that you’re less likely to hear anything distracting, as we all kind of live in a world now where we work from home with barking dogs, babies, trucks going by and things like that, that could be super helpful. [inaudible 00:04:30] they’re doing a lot of work with different psychologists and things like that, just to make sure that they really are creating something that can definitely help out.
Josh Anderson:
The writer here does say that they tried it out for themselves, kind of listening to some soothing music and white noises, they worked. Says they didn’t really feel an immediate or dramatic increase in energy or focus, but as the time went on, they noticed they were working for much longer than they normally would and weren’t getting distracted or tired. So it definitely does have some merit and can definitely kind of seem to help. It says they’re working about maybe kind of putting this into planes, even putting it into music and maybe even into television with different pictures and stuff. And again, as I said, this isn’t necessarily something that’s made for assistive technology, although really, if you look at it, it is assistive.
Josh Anderson:
And it could be assistant for all different kinds of disabilities, as well as those that don’t have any disabilities or any documented disabilities, I suppose. Focus, attention, good sleep, all these things are issues that really kind of affect everyone on some level at some time, I suppose. But also especially individuals with disabilities who maybe have ADHD, autism or other diagnoses that really affect focus really affect being able to stay on task and be able to get things done in the manner that they’re supposed to. And sometimes sound… I mean, think of sound canceling headphones and how great those have been for a lot of individuals. But this with the sound masking, with the kind of pleasant sounds, could really help individuals with all different kinds of abilities, perhaps be more productive, be able to stay on task or heck, just get a better night’s sleep, which I’m sure all of us could use a little bit.
Josh Anderson:
So I will put a link to this story over in our show notes so you can go check it out again. It looks like some of it’s still a little bit in the development phase, but I can definitely see how when Endel actually does get all this done, how it can really help folks all over the world.
Josh Anderson:
The next story comes with the Berkeley News. It’s titled, The Pandemic Could Open a Door to New Technology and Dramatic Innovation in Education. It’s written by Edward Lempinen, and actually the entire thing pretty much is an interview with Zachary Pardos, who’s the assistant professor at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education and the School of Information. And Pardos is a specialist in adaptive learning technology, so he studies the deep dynamics of student learning and then tries to marshal big data to build user-friendly tools that are both powerful and subtle. And really throughout the interview, it talks about different emerging support systems, it’s helpful to engage students and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses even when they’re not in the classroom. Even talks about using kind of computers and machines as tutors and things like that, but really what it gets into is, and really what brought me to this is, the very beginning of this article that talks about, disaster is a laboratory for innovation.
Josh Anderson:
And it talks about how in the aftermath of giant cataclysmic events that really make us rethink the way that we do things, sometimes is where some of the best ideas come from. I don’t want to talk about this article a whole lot, because like I said, it’s an interview and well, interviews are what we do on here, so I definitely don’t want to steal their thunder. But I will put a link to this over in our show notes so you can check it out. It’s got some really great information, he’s got some pretty good ideas here, and I can really see how some of this stuff can really help out in special education classes, as opposed to just students who maybe are struggling because they’re having to learn online.
Josh Anderson:
But really and truly the whole world has changed, and while some of it will be temporary and some things will probably get back to normal sometime, hopefully soon, other things may stay changed. And some of that could be a good thing as we learn to be able to teach students better, to learn better and to maybe be more inclusive in our learning environments, perhaps learners of all abilities will end up benefiting from these changes that are made during this time of struggle. So I’ll put a link to this over in our show notes so that you can go and check out the story for yourself.
Josh Anderson:
We’re here in early October, and as many of you know, especially here in the United States, a big election is coming up in November. And no matter which way your political views may skew, we all know that voting is very important. Well for individuals with disabilities, sometimes voting can be quite difficult. We actually talked about this a little bit more at length when we had Donna Meltzer on from One Vote Now, back in August. But I’ve had a couple of stories just talking about the election this year.
Josh Anderson:
As of you probably know, there’s this big pandemic thing going on, it’s got everybody talking and it’s still kind of continues to go on. And with that, a lot of folks are a little bit worried about going and voting in person. So different States have different rules and different people have different opinions, of course, on mail-in voting and kind of how that works. But for individual with disabilities, especially those who are blind or low vision, it can be really difficult to vote. Going out to the polls may or may not be an option depending upon transportation, just fear of getting sick, so a lot of folks are wanting to vote from home and by mail. But if you’re blind or visually impaired, that can really make some challenges because how are you going to be able to access that mail-in ballot?
Josh Anderson:
Well, I mean, there’s different ways you could do it. One, and probably the easiest way, is to have someone help you. But what if that person doesn’t share your political beliefs? What if you tell them to check the box for person A, but they go on and check it for person B, you’d really have no way to know until that is sent in. Well, these couple of stories I’ve found, one is out of Virginia, the other out of Illinois, and basically what they’re doing is they’re offering a different way for individuals who are blind or visually impaired to be able to vote by mail. And what they do is they actually will send you an electronic version of that mail-in ballot, then you’ll use whatever assistive technology you may use on your computer to be able to read it. So a screen reader, magnification, whatever it is that you might need to be able to visually, or I guess, auditorily access that ballot and ensure that you are actually filling in the boxes next to the candidates that you want to vote for, make sure that your voice is heard.
Josh Anderson:
So then with that, you do not email it back because, of course, there’s probably tons of issues with emailing ballots and stuff, and we’re nowhere near having anything like that work, but you print it out and you mail it in just like a normal mail in ballot. But you’re positive that you are actually filling this out for the person that you want and that your vote will get mailed in and will get counted. This is a really great accommodation, and I know we’ve talked on here before about different accommodations, different voting accommodations, especially for in-person, but this year is just so much different and in-person really isn’t possible for everyone. Mail-in voting has really been expanded in a whole lot of States. And again, whatever your thoughts are on mail-in voting, that’s fine and that’s your opinion when you’re definitely allowed to have that, but it is a good accommodation for some folks who can not just get out and be able to vote. Or the place where they’re supposed to vote may not have the accommodations they need available there to help them out, so this is a really great accommodation for folks.
Josh Anderson:
And I do not know if all States are offering such things, there are a lot of ways that you can kind of find out, but you can definitely check with your local voting office and see if this kind of thing is available. But I’ll put a link to the stories about Virginia and Illinois and the things that they’re doing over in the show notes so that you can check those out. And don’t forget, we got a little less than a month until it’s time to go out and vote.
Josh Anderson:
As you’ll recall last week we had Narayanan on to talk about the Avaz app and just all the great things that it could do, but we ran out of time to get all the information. So let’s go ahead and get into part two of our interview, just starting up, right where we left off last week. Well, I want to talk about some of the other apps that you have available and find out a little bit about them. Because we talked about the Avaz ACC, but you also have MDA Avaz Reader and Avaz Free Speech, can you tell me about those?
Narayanan Ramakrishnan:
Sure. So let me start with Free Speech first because it was kind of almost a very… a logical next step from Avaz. So with Avaz, you’re able to create sentences and communicate, so you’re able to learn vocabulary and communicate. And one of the interesting things, and this is if you talk to many experts in this entire linguistics field and even many speech therapists. One of the challenges that, especially children with autism or specific language disabilities face, is that they’re able to gather vocabulary or learn vocabulary, but this entire sentence structure, the grammar, the glue that kind of puts all the vocabulary together into a correct sentence, that’s always a challenge to a lot of children, right? So you may know words, but you may have difficulty in putting them into a grammatically correct sentence structure.
Narayanan Ramakrishnan:
Or even for that matter, if you are learning a new language, right? If you’re a person for whom English is a second language, you may be able to learn words, but the grammar always kind of trips you up. And I don’t know about you, but the way I learned grammar was pretty boring. And it was very, kind of the same, kind of almost a very repetitive model. What we wanted to do with Free Speech was have a very fun way of learning grammar and a [inaudible 00:13:55] of learning grammar. So what Free Speech does is that in terms of vocabulary and pictures that represent words, very similar to Avaz, but what the interesting thing is that you can drag and drop words and put them into boxes and then Free Speech does the magic underneath it, where it will create a [inaudible 00:14:14] grammatically correct sentence. So let’s say you start with a word like, want. So [inaudible 00:14:20] give you the scaffold of… it will ask you prompts, “Who wants, what do you want?” And then you can kind of add more words and there is an entire prediction for that, right?
Narayanan Ramakrishnan:
So when you select want and then you say, “Who wants.” Then you have all nouns and pronouns coming up. So when you drag and say, “I want.” And then you’ll have, “What do you want?” So you’ll have a lot of different things coming up, right? So there is very intelligent prediction there, and the ability to continue expanding sentences is there. And then on top of it, you layer it with tense modification, right? So if you wanted to say, okay, “I eat.” But how do I make it into a perfect tense? I tap a button on Free Speech and it will say, “I have eaten.” Or past perfect, right?
Narayanan Ramakrishnan:
So what Free Speech offers is a fun way of just playing with grammar, just like Lego blocks, right? So you can say, “Okay, I want the sentence in past tense.” You hit a button and see how it is in past tense. So the child is able to contras what was present and what was past by a tap of a button, and they’re able to kind of learn better as well. Or a classic example of, I run. This is where a lot of children trip up as well, right? So I run, but he runs. So with Free Speech you’re able to contrast the [inaudible 00:15:53].
Josh Anderson:
And what about the other one, the MDA Avaz Reader?
Narayanan Ramakrishnan:
I think one of our strongest suits, Josh, is to collaborate with the best in the world who work and create assistive tech products. So when we started with Avaz we collaborated with a lot of therapists in the US, in Europe, in India and created Avaz and how [inaudible 00:16:17] came out, but it was a lot from research and from these experts. Similarly with the Reader, what we’ve done is we’ve collaborated with the Madras Dyslexia Association, so this one we wanted to focus on helping children read better. And the whole idea is that if you’re able to take a photo of any text and you want to read it, and that text can be in English, it can be in Spanish, it can be in whatever, Hindi, you take a photo of it, and the app will detect the text, will detect what the text is, and then it will read it out to you. So this first level of it will read it out to you.
Narayanan Ramakrishnan:
The second level is that it will then give you support on words that are difficult and you don’t understand, so it will break up a word for you. So for example, if the word is climbing, it will show an image for what it is. And then it will say, “Okay, climbing is climb plus I-N-G.” So it will give you all those ways, all those kind of simple techniques, by which the child is able to understand the word better.
Narayanan Ramakrishnan:
And now imagine, this is happening in India, is that in this pandemic situation where a lot of schools are going online, they’re able to put in their lessons into the app and the app kind of then reads it out for them, or they can read it for themselves by dragging. And so we have another feature on the app where they can drag their finger and read themselves, so it’s almost an easy way for them to read on a tablet with an entire, kind of a highlighting model built in. So the idea behind Reader is to really encourage independent reading.
Josh Anderson:
Very good, and that’s an important part of communication as well. So it’s still kind of goes along with everything. So what’s next? Where do you see Avaz going in the future?
Narayanan Ramakrishnan:
We’re very passionate about accessibility, Josh. And I think accessibility is… Obviously, in the assistive experience, if you talk about accessibility, you’re talking about switches or you’re talking about different kinds of accessibility in terms of [inaudible 00:18:30], ex cetera, right? But there is other accessibility in terms of languages and devices and platforms, right? So Avaz right now is offered in close to 15 languages, and we want to support many more languages in the future. Because we constantly keep getting requests from a lot of… Like for example, there are parents in Hungary, Romania, who have customized Avaz for their needs. And because Avaz is very easy to move words around and they can record their own voices, et cetera, or they can use the text to speech. So they’ve kind of customized it completely for their country, for their locale.
Narayanan Ramakrishnan:
So what we really wanted to see in the future, Josh, is almost looking at providing access to different languages and then also across platforms. So right now, in the US or in the US code system, there are obviously a lot of iPads being used for AAC, all different kinds of devices being used, different kinds of Apple devices used for AAC. Whereas Android is also an important player in this ecosystem because Android tablets are slightly cheaper, and phones are also more accessible now. So the entire accessibility part also has, is our app supported on Android? Is our app supported on different devices that are affordable for parents? So that is an important aspect for us, where we want to move.
Narayanan Ramakrishnan:
And I think the third aspect where we are very evolved, we started work and we want to continue doing work, is the sole aspect of caregiver training, where we want to really make the life of a parent also really easy because they are a critical part of this entire ecosystem, right? So because they spend so much time with the communicator, so they really need to be empowered. So we are working a lot on how to ensure that we are able to train the caregiver, how we’re able to support them. And obviously this entire thing could happen to teletherapy itself, or it could happen through some sort of a virtual means if not teletherapy. So it could be between the app, can the app have intelligence that would detect and support the parent, or even support the communicator with that intelligence, they have location data and all.
Narayanan Ramakrishnan:
So kind of like what we see with our Apple Watches and the kind of the new things that are coming now, where it’s almost hitting the mainstream, all that needs to come to AAC at some point in time, right? Because AAC is nothing but a person’s voice, so all those need to kind of fit in. It could be like controlling your environment, accessing switches. Like, can it turn off a light in two hours? So things like that, that’s where the future is headed in terms of different access issues [inaudible 00:21:44] ideas are slowly becoming much more affordable, much more coming to lower end devices as well. So in the coming few years, I’m sure it will be available on some other phones that people can afford, things will change significantly then.
Josh Anderson:
That’s excellent. Yeah, integrating all that other technology and just increasing that independence is a great thing. Can you tell me a story about someone who was assisted by Avaz?
Narayanan Ramakrishnan:
Sure, so this is one of my favorite stories. It’s [inaudible 00:22:14], but it just really drives home the point on different levels. So this parent had started using Avaz with her child after a few years. So she had heard about Avaz, she was a bit reluctant to use Avaz to begin with, because she wanted to increase the child’s speech. So then she started slowly using Avaz with her child, and so sometime in the night at around two o’clock, the child woke up and the child was in severe discomfort, right? So the little child, he was feeling unwell and parents were a bit panicking as to what exactly the child was facing and what was it that was making him uncomfortable?
Narayanan Ramakrishnan:
And so they tried kind of for five, 10 minutes, trying to… Because the child could speak a bit, they were trying to figure out what the child is trying to say. And they were second guessing, they were kind of making guesses on what he ate, something like that. And then they realize, “Okay, great, let’s get Avaz.” And so they go and get Avaz and give it to the child, and then the child navigates to the board and says, “Alka-Seltzer.” And basically he wanted that tablet, so basically, he was having some sort of a gastric issue. And so he was feeling uncomfortable. So he just said, “This is what I want.” And he tapped on Alka-Seltzer.
Narayanan Ramakrishnan:
For me, it was a very fascinating story. It gives the power to the child. The child [inaudible 00:23:48], imagine the impact of this on the child’s confidence [inaudible 00:23:51]. That the child is able to say, “Look, I wanted it. So I’ve been able to do this, and I’ve been able to solve this situation that we were in.” And the parents are like, “Oh, we should have brought this up before to them.”
Josh Anderson:
You brought up a great point, it’s amazing the things that we take for granted in communication and just being able to have the power and the independence to say what you want or what you need, or what is wrong. It can be, and I think you said it perfectly there, empowering for the individual.
Narayanan Ramakrishnan:
The thing is, actually communication is about these small things. I really don’t know how this quote came about and who to attribute it to, but this is something that we talk a lot about in our team. It is, communication happens in the mess of daily life. And so basically that means whatever system that you’re using has to adapt, it has to be robust for the mess of daily life. And that kind of guides our decision making, our design process as well. And these stories really also almost give us that confidence, right? Okay, we are doing something right, we are making a difference and we will continue doing this, right? So that these are stories that also keep us going.
Josh Anderson:
Oh, definitely, most definitely. And they’re the same things that always keep me going in my job as well. Narayanan where exactly is Avaz available and how can our listeners find out more?
Narayanan Ramakrishnan:
Sure. So Avaz is available on all the platforms, Android and Apple platforms. All people listening too, can find Avaz on avazapp.com. That is A-V-A-Z A-P-P.com. The website has all the information and it has all the contacts, so you can kind of reach out to any of us. We have a very responsive support team. You can contact us through phone or chat, so everything’s on avazapp.com.
Josh Anderson:
Excellent, we’ll put that information over in our show notes. Thank you so much for coming on today, telling us everything that Avaz has to offer and just having a great conversation about communication and just how important AAC is for individuals all around the globe.
Narayanan Ramakrishnan:
Thank you so much, Josh. It was great talking to you.
Josh Anderson:
Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on assistive technology update? If you do call our listener line at 317-721-7124. Shoot us a note on Twitter at INDATA Project, or check us out on Facebook. Are you looking for a transcript or show notes? Head on over to our website at www.eastersealstech.com. Assistive Technology Update is a proud member of the Accessibility Channel, for more shows like this plus so much more head over to accessibilitychannel.com. The views expressed by our guests are not necessarily that of this host or the INDATA Project, this has been your Assistive Technology Update. I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in Indianapolis, Indiana. Thank you so much for listening, and we’ll see you next time.