Expanding the world for children with disabilities

Feature Stories | 02 Dec 2024

Dr. Beata Batorowicz’s lab has a peculiar resident: a board-game savvy robot named Sawyer. His home is a unique place at Queen’s where assistive technology meets cutting-edge research.

Dr. Batorowicz is an Associate Professor in the School of Rehabilitation Therapy. Her team’s mission at Queen’s Augmentative and Alternative Communication – Interaction and Technology (AAC-IT) Lab: to enhance communication, social participation, and the overall quality of life for children and young people with disabilities. Their speciality is environment-based intervention, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), and the use of assistive and emerging technologies.

Children with severe speech and motor impairments can be socially isolated. Many have difficulty manipulating physical spaces and objects – limiting their participation in many learning and social activities, she explains.

“How can we enable these children and youth to have inclusive participation in typical childhood occupations and activities?” Dr. Batorowicz asks. “That’s the key question we are trying to answer.”

At the end of the day, it means finding ways to provide youth with disabilities meaningful engagement, skills and competencies development, choice, and autonomy.

Case in point: playing a board game. That’s where Sawyer comes in. A red, mechanical arm with a tablet screen “face” of googly eyes, the robot can execute moves for non-verbal players through the help of technology that tracks human eye movement. Sawyer reads participants’ communication and executes their moves in a modified version of the game Quarto. During testing, children with and without disabilities were able to equally benefit from Sawyer’s assistance.

Sawyer is part of the lab’s ongoing, collaborative research that involves post-doctoral fellow Vera Ralin, Yosra Kazemi (PhD, Computer Science) and graduate student Rafael Santana (Rehabilitation Science), as well as Dr. Sidney Givigi and Dr. Nicholas Graham (School of Computing), Dr. Jordan Shurr (Education) and Dr. Claire Davies (Smith Engineering). The team even includes an interdisciplinary ethicist with expertise in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and human enhancement technologies: Dr. Tracy J. Trothen (Rehabilitation Therapy and the School of Religion).

Student with a robot playing a game — Steph Lackey, Ph.D. Candidate, in Rehabilitation Science.

Intelligent robots could one day help children with disabilities more broadly interact at home, in social settings, and in the classroom. The initial, exploratory project was funded by the New Frontiers in Research Fund, but Dr. Batorowicz’s research group in collaboration with Dr. Givigi is now looking to expand on Sawyer’s success.

“The idea for the next project is to expand AI and robot application to genuine peer interactions, providing children with disability with increased control of their environment,” she explains.

For example, the team is examining how an intelligent robot might help a child meaningfully participate in something like a science project or experiment in a school setting.

It’s all about collaboration. An interdisciplinary approach allows Dr. Batorowicz and her lab to develop, apply, and assess emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and robots as ways to enhance the engagement of children with disabilities.

“These strategies and tools can enable learning and play and give children a voice and choice,” she explains. “In turn, it promotes positive developmental outcomes and, ultimately, the potential for self-determination.”

Dr. Batorowicz’s research expertise includes AAC, social and leisure participation of children and young people with disabilities, innovative measures of participation, and the use of technology for assessment.

Her work goes well beyond Sawyer, of course, and includes collaborations far and wide. For example, she has been the Canadian lead of an ongoing international project with 16 countries looking at the application of augmentative and alternative communications systems with school-age children. Researchers are examining the impact of daily participation on development of language and literacy and pragmatic reasoning skills. She has been the Chair of the Research Committee of the International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (ISAAC) and Associate Editor of the AAC journal.

"Uncovering competencies and achievements of children and youth with disabilities, rather than only focusing on their deficits is essential,” she says. “Augmentative and alternative communication and technology offer opportunities to tap into children’s capacity and engage them in meaningful childhood activities."

Her dream is a world in which every person with disabilities can have access to effective AAC systems and assistive technology.

She is not alone in her vision. Other funding partners on her research include the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Accessibility Standards Canada, Queen's Health Sciences, Mastercard Foundation, and the Canadian Occupational Therapy Foundation (COTF).

The affordability and availability of technology-based solutions are also an important factor. To that end, Dr. Batorowicz is working with international colleagues such as the Federal University of Sergipe in Aracaju, Brazil, which is home to an alternative communication lab led by Dr. Rosana Givigi. The goal is to develop AAC technology and tools that are appropriately adapted and culturally valid.

Whether through graphic symbols, robots, AI or other cutting-edge tactics, Dr. Batorowicz’s team and wider network are working to design and promote interventions that enable the communication, meaningful participation, and well-being of children and young people with disabilities and their families.

“We know that participation and peer interaction are critical to children's health and long-term development,” Dr. Batorowicz. “It’s all about enhancing their capacity and showing their abilities through the use of technologies. And giving them an opportunity to learn and play.”

With files from the AAC-IT lab.

Expanding the world for children with disabilities

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