Device for Disabled Converts Brain Signals into Spoken Words

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20 December 2007

Device for Disabled Converts Brain Signals into Spoken Words

Invention also enables wheelchair to be controlled by signals from brain

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Tom

Tom demonstrates a wheelchair operated by brain signals at the

Texas Instruments Developers Conference in March. and

Callahan developed technology called the Audeo that intercepts

neurological signals to permit disabled people to stop, turn and start

the wheelchair. The Audeo also enables people with ALS and other

neurological disorders to speak. (Ambient Corporation)

By Louise Fenner

USINFO Staff Writer

Washington -- Two young inventors are perfecting a device that gives

back the power of speech to people who suffer from diseases or

disabilities that have taken away their ability to talk.

The device, called the Audeo, translates thoughts -- or, more precisely,

brain signals sent to the vocal cords -- into synthesized speech. Using

the same technology, inventors Callahan and also

have created a mechanized wheelchair that moves, turns and stops in

response to intercepted brain signals.

The first commercially available speech device “is slated for the middle

of 2008, designed specifically for people with ALS or diseases that have

similar types of effects,” Callahan said in an interview from his office

in Champaign, Illinois, where he and co-founded the Ambient

Corporation three years ago to research and market the Audeo. Both men

are now 25.

“If development goes well, it should give them a full vocabulary, their

ability to speak,” Callahan said.

ALS -- amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease -- can rob

people of their physical motor control and ability to produce speech.

So can some other diseases, as well as traumatic brain injury, cerebral

palsy, stroke and certain spinal cord injuries. Callahan and

are anxious to help people with such conditions.

In fact, Callahan said, “our goal is to make [the Audeo] affordable to

people who may or may not have health insurance, because we want the

technology to get to everyone -- so it will be priced accordingly.”

“The technology is not finished, so the communication we can give them

is limited but extremely useful where there are no other options,” he said.

The Audeo uses sensors located in a neckband worn by the user to detect

electrical impulses in the vocal cords and relay them to a nearby

computer that converts the signals to speech. But users need not fear

that the device can read their minds, Callahan said.

Callahan

Callahan won the Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize for his

“mind-controlled” wheelchair. (Ambient Corporation)

“It’s a step above thinking and a step below actually speaking, so you

have to want to say it,” he explained. “If you don’t want to say it, we

have no signal to detect and nothing is able to be communicated. But if

person does actually want to say it, we’re able to capture the

instruction signal that your brain sends.”

Existing communication devices for severely disabled people generally

require them to select a button or word on a computer screen, or use a

head-tracking or eye-tracking system to move a cursor on the screen.

Some people are unable to do even these things, said Callahan, “so we’re

trying to provide a more efficient way to input thoughts into a computer.”

He estimates that some 3 million people in the United States and 60

million people worldwide could benefit from this technology. “We’ve

gotten a large amount of interest from countries all over the world,

from people who have different diseases and disabilities,” Callahan

said. “Our first roll-out will be targeted toward English speakers, but

we have the technology to cross the language barrier and to enable

people to speak in other languages.”

One goal, he said, is to “build a community of people; we want to

connect all the people that need these types of devices, so they can

talk with each other.”

He and started investigating the technology as engineering

students at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, and they have

won numerous awards for their work. Testing is being done at the

Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and other institutions. They also

hope to find mainstream commercial uses for the technology such as

silent cell-phone communication. Their work has been self-financed to

date, but now they are planning to seek venture capital. (See related

article.)

Callahan recalled one man with cerebral palsy who communicated by

touching a computer screen with a pointer mounted to his head. Callahan

fitted him with an Audeo speech device and urged him to say the word

“yes.” On the computer screen, the man said he never had spoken before.

“In a short amount of time, we had him saying single words and then

moving into phrases, and that was the first time he had had a

seminatural experience of actually speaking,” said Callahan. The man,

who had been born with cerebral palsy, was in his mid-60s.

“It doesn’t take a big stretch of the imagination to see why we’re doing

this -- if you think what your life would be like if you couldn’t say

anything for the rest of it,” Callahan said. “Knowing that any one of us

could be in that situation and that there are already people in that

situation, that’s just a huge motivation.”

No date has been set for the commercial production of the wheelchair,

Callahan said, but he hopes to license it to a wheelchair manufacturer

in the future.

See also " Music Therapy Helps People with Disabilities. "

For more information on the Audeo, see the Ambient Corporation's Web site.

(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs,

U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)