Emily Yu Williams College Class of 2011 Email Me Home

To start the week, another test subject came to help us with our research. Born with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, oxygen could not get to his brain, causing his disability. Using Camera Mouse 2008, he performed some movement analysis tests developed by another graduate student here (currently in Pakistan) and played a game that John developed. He also tested out Caitlin's version of the Camera Mouse, which automatically re-finds the feature being tracked if it gets lost. Using her version of Camera Mouse, he performed my movement test program.

This subject's visit turned out to be much more successful than our visit to the Campus School at Boston College. Despite being physically unable to move much other than his head and hands, he was responsive and able to understand instructions. He successfully performed all the tests we asked him to do, and was even able to offer some feedback. The subject and his caretaker had a remarkable way of communicating. His caretaker would first go through the 5 vowels, "A, E, I, O, U", and he would move his head to the right for the one he wanted. His caretaker would then ask if it was the actual vowel. If not, he would then go through the consonants. If "A", he would go through "B, C, and D", if "E", he would go through "F, G, and H", and so on. For these he would do the same thing. He would stay still until he heard the letter he wanted and then he would move to the right. After a few letters, his caretaker would start guessing words. The process is slow, but he got out the sentence "I hate to ask, [but] where is the money?" and "is there a quicker way?" in reference to our directions to the Mass Pike. The subject's responsiveness and ability to react to things and understand our instructions was remarkable.

From the subject's performance on my test program, I was able to get some data on his movement ability. The results from this test can be seen here.

On my last day at BU, this subject came in for a second testing session. He tried out our movement analysis programs again as well as using an image editing program designed for Camera Mouse users called Camera Canvas. The results from this second testing session can be seen here.

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