Bolte Chai: An Augmentative and

Alternative Communication Device

for Enhancing Communication for
Nonverbal Children
Md. Nasfikur R. Khan, Mohammad N. H.
Pias, K. Habib, M. Hossain, F. Sarker and
K. A. Mamun
Advanced Intelligent Multidisciplinary
Systems Lab (AIMS Lab), UIU,
BangladeshEmail: mamun@cse.uiu.ac.bd

The Big Idea

Bolte Chai or express yourself, is a kind of a system, which is

a to help people with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Neurodevelopment

Disorder (NDD), Paralyzed person, ICU(Intensive care unit)
patients, CCU (Coronary care unit) patients, verbally challenged
aged person to communicate with their peers.
People like Scientist Professor Stephen Hawking, has severe

NDD problems. He does all sorts of his research and

communication through a computer based assistive tool
(SwiftKey). Similar to that, we are trying to develop a basic and
cheaper but efficient system, to meet the communication rights
of the people with verbal disabilities.

Note the Differences

There are several communication devices are available
in the developed countries. However, those are much
expensive considering the perspective users of
developing and under developed countries. Our
concern is to develop a system, which is cheaper but
efficient for the people of developing countries like
Bangladesh, which can be used by people of different
ages and stages, even with minimum
literacy.

Reason behind the Idea

ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder), NDD (Neuro-development
Disorder), ICU and CCU patients are always suffered to
communicate like ordinary patients. They also have difficulties to
learn something new in contemporary way.
On that matter, the pioneer of applied behavior analysis and
intervention for children with autism, Dr. O. Ivar Lovaas said,
"If they cant learn the way we teach, we teach the way they learn."
Besides, People with physical and verbal disorder also face similar
kind of problem. Along that, they (verbally challenged people and
their guides) need proper training to express and understand their
feelings. For solving this particular issue, we try to bring and
manufacture a system.

Methodology

Case Study
The participants have been chosen based on
some criteria:
Verbally challenged (complete or partial)
Aged between 6-12
Demonstrating adequate physical

movement
Age
Complications
Prior experience with PECS
Nam
Not
current
users
of
any
other AAC and
(Sex)
and
SGD
es
SGD
Alif
9Y (M)
Very Limited verbal
Participant has some experiences with
ability

Sabiha

10Y (F)

Limited verbal ability

PECS but no specific experience with

similar kind of communication device
No previous experience with PECS or
communication device.

Experiment Design