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| TX: 19.10.06 - Computer software for disabled children PRESENTER: LIZ BARCLAY |
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| Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. BARCLAY Well children, as you probably know only too well, love telling really bad jokes. But while you're cringing inwardly and laughing uproariously at the latest from your offspring you can console yourself that the dreadful pun plays an important role in improving their communication skills. That's why a computer program has been developed to help young people who can't tell jokes. Called Stand-Up it helps children with disabilities who can only speak through computerised aids to make and tell their own jokes, often for the very first time. It's been on trial at Corseford School near Paisley in Renfrewshire where our reporter John Douglas met head teacher Marbeth Boyle. BOYLE We're moving through the automatic doors and heading up to the area of the school where the primary classes are and also the therapy department. And the children mainly have cerebral palsy, the majority are wheelchair users and we have physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists and nurses and high levels of classroom support staff. Right we've now reached the speech and language therapy department where the computer for the Stand-Up project is. It's a very small neat device, a little screen which could easily attach to a wheelchair. It's been given to us as part of a research project between Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Dundee Universities. From Dundee University is Dr Annalu Waller and Wolf Black her research assistant. BLACK The way it works is it greets the user with a screen and asks the user how they want to get their joke. And at the moment you hear the option buttons being read out because our kids who use the computer are not necessarily literate. So to help them to see which button is actually active at the moment the computer reads out what the button will do for them. COMPUTER I want to tell you a joke are you ready? DOUGLAS I'm ready. COMPUTER Okay. Question. What kind of a sound is incorrect? DOUGLAS I don't know, what kind of a sound is incorrect? COMPUTER Answer. A wrong ring. DOUGLAS A wrong ring - that is awful. Is that the best you can do? BLACK I'll find something better. DOUGLAS Well I tell you what while you try and find a funny one let me talk to Annalu. I have a feeling you could be some time. But however, Annalu what is it that that computer is doing to come up with these jokes? WALLER The program is based on a very large database which connects words together, so words that sound similar or words that mean similar things. And then goes through another database to find two word phrases like a wrong ring and then works backwards from the answer to work out the question. COMPUTER What do you call a shadowy woman. A shady lady. WALLER We have to remember that jokes which we find appalling are sometimes jokes that the children have hysterics about. And it's all about playing with sounds and listening to words. And some words sound funny and that's part of natural language development. DOUGLAS Well Margot Callan is here. Her son Ewan is 10 and he was one of the children that's been using the system. CALLAN People who've got cerebral palsy like Ewan, he has problems communicating and for him it's difficult to get through what he wants to say. He wants to be the same as any other 10 year old but he's unable to express himself. So he'd like to come home and tell a joke like to his friend up the road or to his gran and papa makes it important for him and it makes it important for us because he's just being a 10 year old. DOULGAS And how has it made you feel towards him hearing him tell you jokes? CALLAN I think it's wonderful because I knew deep down inside that he had a brilliant sense of humour and it was just some way of actually trying to get that humour out. WALLER Jokes play a very significant role in the development of language in typical children. We know that children who have severe communication disabilities don't often develop the same control, the same variety of interaction that speaking children do. So we have to try and recreate typical development as far as possible. COMPUTER My name is Daniel McGovern. It was good to put the jokes on my machine, to go and tell them to people and see if they laughed. I thought some jokes were funny and some were not. Wolf asked us questions about what we thought of the program, it was good to know that my opinion would be used to make Stand-Up even better. WALLER A system like Stand-Up provides them with an opportunity to play with language instead of just retrieving pre-stored vocabulary. CALLAN He told the joke all by himself, he didn't need anybody else's help and I think that was the biggest thing for us. COMPUTER My name is Nicole. It made me feel like I did something new, something I hadn't been able to do before. That made me feel good. CALLAN We had a competition actually about who could tell the best jokes. Once he's brought his jokes home we put our jokes on but our jokes were a bit rubbish because ours were years old. COMPUTER Question. What kind of a tree is tranquil? DOUGLAS What kind of a tree is tranquil? I don't know, will you tell me? COMPUTER Okay. Answer. A calm palm. DOUGLAS A calm palm. I laughed, there you go, it works. BARCLAY John Douglas reporting on the joke machine from Paisley. Back to the You and Yours homepage The BBC is not responsible for external websites |
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