Logan ProxTalker: RFID gives voice to disabled children

Filed in archive Implementation on May 21, 2009

How do you communicate with children suffering from multiple disabilities? Some would say it is a difficult task but not impossible.

Disabled students at the New York Public Schools District in Queens have been able to start communicating effectively, thanks to Logan ProxTalker. Children who have been working with the device have been able to put together entire sentences which could not have been possible earlier.

This device has been designed by Glen Dobbs and Kevin Miller and in terms of size is equivalent to a laptop. Utilizing RFID technology, Logan ProxTalker comes bundled with RFID tags (known as sound tags out here) and interrogators enabling a child to command the machine so that it utters the words of choice.

Each sound tag comes with word and phrase along with a corresponding image printed on the front and when the tag is read by the machine it says the word represented by the tag. A row of five pads have been added to the device on which the Sound Tag can be placed which enables the user to sequence words in order to create sentences. Every pad comes with a coil antenna connected to single RFID reader chip in the device.

The device can articulate up to 10,000 different words including a feature which enables teachers and operators to include new words by placing Sound Tag on the reader and the new word is added using the input command.

Life would certainly become easier for the disabled children from now on and help in their effective growth and development.