TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) \u2014 FSU receives $5 million federal grant to develop AI-enhanced communication tools for children with speech disabilities through playground and classroom research.<\/p>\n
Adults who use assistive communication devices are helping guide the research.The five-year project aims to improve communication in places like classrooms and on playgrounds.Watch the video below to hear from FSU associate professors who are conducting research.<\/p>\n
FSU receives $5 million federal grant to develop AI communication tools for children with speech disabilities<\/p>\n
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:<\/p>\n
I’m Justin White your college town neighborhood reporter at Florida State University.<\/p>\n
A federal grant is putting FSU at the center of a national effort to change how children with speech and language disabilities communicate, with help from artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
“So when individuals don’t have access to producing speech,” said Andrea Barton-Hulsey, an associate professor in the FSU School of Communication Science and Disorders. “They often are underestimated their skills and abilities are underestimated.”<\/p>\n
Five million federal dollars are funding a new, multi-university research project aimed at developing AI-enhanced communication tools for children with significant speech and language limitations.<\/p>\n
The five-year project is still in its early stages, with researchers currently observing and gathering information to determine what approaches will work best.<\/p>\n
One part of the research looks beyond the classroom\u2014studying how children communicate in playground “social zones,” where interaction, inclusion, and peer relationships matter just as much as academics.<\/p>\n
Michelle Therrien, who is leading the playground research, says the goal is inclusion.<\/p>\n
“Kids with and without disabilities are able to run and play and do all of the things together in similar ways. Maybe it’s not gonna be exactly the same right, but that kids who have trouble speaking have access to a tool that can support them to engage in the kind of play that other kids do on a playground,” said Therrien<\/p>\n
The project also includes guidance from adults who use augmentative and alternative communication, ensuring the technology is shaped by lived experience, not just research.<\/p>\n
“We’re really using the feedback from adults who use AAC for them to say I don’t think that would really work or that’s actually not that important to us that they can give us that feedback and support us through every phase of the plan,” said Therrien. <\/p>\n
Researchers say the work could influence classrooms, playgrounds, and assistive technology nationwide over the next five years.
At Florida State, I’m Justin White, ABC 27.<\/p>\n
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