The 5 assistive technologies for non-verbal communication that you have to know about…

In this article, we break down the top five assistive communication technologies that you should know about - without further ado, here goes:

1. Tobii Dynavox

Tobii Dynavox is one of the world's foremost assistive technology companies, providing speech communication devices and symbol-adapted special education software which is used to assist individuals in overcoming speech, language and learning challenges.

Tobii focusses a lot of their attention on their tablets, many of which come equipped with eye-tracking technology for those that have no movement at all. The fundamental principle is a grid of flashcards, each showing a word and corresponding symbol, that the user selects in order to output speech.

While these devices are popular, they do come at a very high price point (starting in the thousands of pounds), particularly if you are primarily using them for their functionality as a tablet for communication and don’t use the eye tracker. Tobii Dynavox have also been criticised for their product’s lack of customization, with many users having to select inappropriate voices for their demographics.

2. GridPad

GridPad by ThinkSmartBox is another tablet-based AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) device. It operates on similar principles to Tobii Dynavox, where users select the flashcards corresponding to the words or phrases they want to say in order.

ThinkSmartBox are well known for the build quality and ease of use of their products, though again they have the price tag to match it. The GridPad 12, ThinkSmartBox’s current flagship product starts from £4,495 without any additional technologies such as eye gaze support.

3. HandTalk

HandTalk is an app based system available on Android and iOS to help signers understand what is being said to them. It uses the phone’s microphone and a signing avatar to show the signs corresponding to the detected speech to the user. Developed by a team in Brazil, it has support for Brazilian Sign Language, with some ASL support in Beta for the last 18 months.

While this technology doesn’t work so well to help those that can’t speak be heard, we are still very excited to see where it is heading next, and hope to be able to see wider language support available soon, as well as the ability to use it offline.

4. KUDO

KUDO is a SaaS (Sign Language as a Service?) platform, designed primarily for businesses and enterprise platforms to allow them to conduct virtual events in a sign-speech bilingual manner.

KUDO employs over 7,000 ASL interpreters which are available on calls through app integrations with many popular video meeting platforms including Hopin, Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet.

Pricing is based on a subscription model, paying for an amount of usage each month, which means that it isn’t cheap and will often be out-of-reach for individuals, but it marks an important and notable shift in how enterprises conduct their business with respect to sign language use in today’s virtual world.

5. BrightSign

BrightSign is the world’s only smart glove that supports the translation and interpreting of any sign or gesture into nearly any spoken language. While the company is much younger than many of its competitors, the BrightSign glove is set apart by its complete customizability, ease-of-use and affordability.

While not all users have sufficient movement to use a sign language or gesture translation system, for those that even just have a limited range of motion in one hand, it could be a good option to check out as a way of being more independent.