Sibylle, An Assistive Communication System Adapting to the Context and Its User

Abstract

In this article, we describe the latest version of Sibylle, an AAC system that permits persons who have severe physical disabilities to enter text with any computer application, as well as to compose messages to be read out through speech synthesis. The system consists of a virtual keyboard comprising a set of keypads that allow for the entering of characters or full words by a single-switch selection process. It also includes a sophisticated word prediction component which dynamically calculates the most appropriate words for a given context. This component is auto-adaptive, that is, it learns with every text the user enters. It thus adapts its predictions to the user's language and the current topic of communication as well. So far, the system works for French, German and English. Earlier versions of Sibylle have been used since 2001 in a rehabilitation center (Kerpape, France).