Augmentative Communication

Augmentative Communication (AC) or Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) describe the systems and devices used by people with communication disabilities to enhance or replace spoken or written language.

These disabilities maybe associated with motor neuron disease (MND) such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), acute spinal cord injuries (SCI), traumatic brain injuries (TBI), cerebral palsy (CP), Parkinson's disease, Lesch-Nyhan syndrome or Locked in Syndrome (LiS).

Augmentative Communication devices may be stand-alone units such as touch screens or integrated systems that are part of regular computers or media. NeuroSwitch is an integrated system that is set up fully loaded on an Apple MacBook Pro laptop computer. It uses electromyograph (EMG) signals from painless, non-invasive sensors to enable a user to launch and run the programs that come on the computer, including text, text-to-speech, word processing, email, internet, music, movies and videos and games such as World of Warcraft.

Additionally, NeuroSwitch has been successfully used to control a powered wheelchair. Australian former police officer Nick McLoughlin - who was diagnosed with ALS - used an early edition of NeuroSwitch to drive his Permobil powered wheelchair with remarkable skill and accuracy, after he had lost the use of his hands and could no longer use his Jellybean press switches. You can see Nick's video in the NeuroSwitch Stories section of this website. Nick's proactive applications of NeuroSwitch have helped open the way for people with severe disabilities to maintain communications and control as we continue to evolve this cutting edge technology. NeuroSwitch is designed to provide the best of augmentative communication technology, to enable a user to become as independent and productive as possible.