hilary1617
First time at the rodeo.
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2014
- Messages
- 3,874
Thank you all so much. It's so hard. Here's my hero, just a few months shy of 90 now.
And here's the college essay my son is working on for his common app this week (due Nov 15):
My grandfather has Alzheimer’s disease. Not long ago, as a former law professor with a dry sense of humor who loved a good debate, he was the life of the party. Now, he struggles with processing spoken words. He often mishears or misunderstands words and ends up on a tangent when they are repeated, losing the original thought. Sometimes, without realizing it, my grandfather makes a replacement error where he will say “automobile” when he is thinking about a “lamp”. Compounding word-switching and comprehension issues, he is easily distracted and loses track of conversations altogether when there is background noise. Communications difficulties are muting his personality. I am determined to find a way to bring him back to the center of conversations.
My grandfather still can read. Noticing that he enjoys closed captioned television programs, I became inspired to find out how to add subtitles to our conversations. Along the way, successes and failures alike have deepened my understanding of cognitive impairment, guided my approach and redefined my quest.
I first tried writing by hand on a small whiteboard. Encouraged by results, but nursing a case of writer's cramp, I searched the internet for automated captioning products. Given widespread voice-to-text use and the prevalence of seniors with dementia and hearing problems, I was stunned to find a lack of commercially-available assistive subtitling solutions. I resolved to improvise.
I tested mobile phone apps with live-captioning for the deaf. These were quick and eliminated the manual scribing, as desired. Importantly, they showed that augmenting speech with text could improve our conversational flow. Except they often didn't. Frequent errors made them unsuitable. Ironically, autocorrect fails mirrored the very problems I sought to resolve. Instead of relieving communication challenges, I had compounded them by adding a synthetic version to the mix. I also discovered that regardless of content quality, mobile phones and tablets wouldn't transmit messages well. My grandfather spent more time scrolling, tapping and fidgeting than reading. His eyes were fixed on the screen, depriving him of critical body language cues and detracting from the interpersonal face-to-face experience. A key takeaway is to first do no harm.
Throughout the trial and error process, my determination has been strengthened when I've overcome challenges. To unite captioning with eye contact, I repurposed inexpensive LED-display baseball caps and lapel badges sold for use at conventions. It took time for the novelty to wear off and data entry was a bit awkward, but displaying corrective text near my eyes, yielded both promising conversational results and beaming smiles. Then, when a portable voice amplifier headset designed for fitness instructors was deployed to overcome background noise, I was rewarded by a substantial drop in the number of times "What?" is uttered.
I've learned that I need both to develop my vision and to acquire the skills to realize it. My mission has evolved considerably. I set out to purchase something that would fulfill what amounted to a vague notion of a conversational captioning app. I now aspire to learn how to deliver a pattern-adaptive assistive live captioning system that augments natural language capabilities; considers context and word order to identify and correct errors in input or output, effectively translating broken English to corrected English; recognizes commonly-spoken phrases and speech patterns of specific users; and incorporates directional microphones, voice amplification and a simplified wearable, large-font display.
On a good day recently, my grandfather's advice was to "enjoy life, take care of those most in need, look to the future, do everything you can correctly and wisely, learn, stay healthy, and stay alive". Among the many gifts he has given me, my favorites are empathy and hope. I can't help but feel compassion for him and others whose human connections are being disrupted by cognitive disability. I plan to dedicate my college years to learning how to brighten their futures. This pursuit has become my calling.
And here's the college essay my son is working on for his common app this week (due Nov 15):
My grandfather has Alzheimer’s disease. Not long ago, as a former law professor with a dry sense of humor who loved a good debate, he was the life of the party. Now, he struggles with processing spoken words. He often mishears or misunderstands words and ends up on a tangent when they are repeated, losing the original thought. Sometimes, without realizing it, my grandfather makes a replacement error where he will say “automobile” when he is thinking about a “lamp”. Compounding word-switching and comprehension issues, he is easily distracted and loses track of conversations altogether when there is background noise. Communications difficulties are muting his personality. I am determined to find a way to bring him back to the center of conversations.
My grandfather still can read. Noticing that he enjoys closed captioned television programs, I became inspired to find out how to add subtitles to our conversations. Along the way, successes and failures alike have deepened my understanding of cognitive impairment, guided my approach and redefined my quest.
I first tried writing by hand on a small whiteboard. Encouraged by results, but nursing a case of writer's cramp, I searched the internet for automated captioning products. Given widespread voice-to-text use and the prevalence of seniors with dementia and hearing problems, I was stunned to find a lack of commercially-available assistive subtitling solutions. I resolved to improvise.
I tested mobile phone apps with live-captioning for the deaf. These were quick and eliminated the manual scribing, as desired. Importantly, they showed that augmenting speech with text could improve our conversational flow. Except they often didn't. Frequent errors made them unsuitable. Ironically, autocorrect fails mirrored the very problems I sought to resolve. Instead of relieving communication challenges, I had compounded them by adding a synthetic version to the mix. I also discovered that regardless of content quality, mobile phones and tablets wouldn't transmit messages well. My grandfather spent more time scrolling, tapping and fidgeting than reading. His eyes were fixed on the screen, depriving him of critical body language cues and detracting from the interpersonal face-to-face experience. A key takeaway is to first do no harm.
Throughout the trial and error process, my determination has been strengthened when I've overcome challenges. To unite captioning with eye contact, I repurposed inexpensive LED-display baseball caps and lapel badges sold for use at conventions. It took time for the novelty to wear off and data entry was a bit awkward, but displaying corrective text near my eyes, yielded both promising conversational results and beaming smiles. Then, when a portable voice amplifier headset designed for fitness instructors was deployed to overcome background noise, I was rewarded by a substantial drop in the number of times "What?" is uttered.
I've learned that I need both to develop my vision and to acquire the skills to realize it. My mission has evolved considerably. I set out to purchase something that would fulfill what amounted to a vague notion of a conversational captioning app. I now aspire to learn how to deliver a pattern-adaptive assistive live captioning system that augments natural language capabilities; considers context and word order to identify and correct errors in input or output, effectively translating broken English to corrected English; recognizes commonly-spoken phrases and speech patterns of specific users; and incorporates directional microphones, voice amplification and a simplified wearable, large-font display.
On a good day recently, my grandfather's advice was to "enjoy life, take care of those most in need, look to the future, do everything you can correctly and wisely, learn, stay healthy, and stay alive". Among the many gifts he has given me, my favorites are empathy and hope. I can't help but feel compassion for him and others whose human connections are being disrupted by cognitive disability. I plan to dedicate my college years to learning how to brighten their futures. This pursuit has become my calling.
