Interaction Research

My research involving augmentative communication has generally focused on how individuals with impaired movement, including those with cerebral palsy and motor neuron disease, engage in interactions with others, using their bodies and augmentative communication technology. Much of my work has focused on the distortions in interaction time related to the augmented speaker's slowly composed productions and the consequent adaptations made by the interactants to accommodate the increased demands on attention, vigilance, memory, etc. In general, my research has focused on the interactional costs inherent in the use of augmentative devices and how they can be designed to avoid some of these “designed” impediments. My research has utilized both group level experimental designs, as well as smaller and more intense microanalytic investigations.

• CADL currently collaborates with the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies (UNC – Chapel Hill) on a 5-year grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation, Engineering Research. The purpose of Project OPEN is to:
• Determine the role of composition delay in creating problems for individuals with CCN and their partners in carrying out in-person interactions
• Identify the strategies used by participants to stay in-time and\/or overcome problems during talk-in-interaction.
• Identify interaction similarities and differences across individuals with ALS, cerebral palsy, and intellectual and developmental disabilities.
• Build a web-based open-source AAC prototype for research and development.

Work with Industry and Technology

In the mid- 1990’s I helped to start Enkidu Research, which developed some of the first handheld AAC technologies. With David Wilkins, we developed Frametalker, a technology for the use of utterance- based communication in AAC (received 4 patents), which was licensed by the Dynavox Corporation. As a founding member of the Rehabilitation and Engineering Research Center for Communication Enhancement (1998 – 2014), my laboratory was responsible for the development of automated data logging technologies for AAC and dynamic word prediction that uses the internet for dynamic fringe vocabulary. From 2014 - 2020, I partnered with Bryan Moulton, UltraBlue LLC, to develop Therapy Science, a web portal which provides powerful single case design and tracking tools and curriculum material for speech-language pathology. 

• Fellow of the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association, 2014
• Honors of the Association in the Profession for Speech-Language Pathology; Speech and Hearing Association of Western New York, 2013
• Licensed Innovation award, The Research Foundation, The State University of New York: Innovation Creation and Discovery, 2005
• Nominee, Inventor of the Year, Niagara Frontier Intellectual Property Law Association and the Technical Societies Council of the Niagara Frontier, 2002
  
• US Department of Education, Mary E. Switzer Distinguished Research Fellow, 1996-1997
• Editors Award, Augementative and Alternative Communication, 1995

• CDS 480: Clinical Observation and Participation
• CDS 502: Evaluating Clinical Change