AI SMART SOLUTIONS: PROVIDING INTELLIGENT SOLUTIONS FOR INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES

According to the World Health Organization (who.int/news- room/fact-sheets/detail/disability-and-health), about 15% of the global population (1.2 billion people) has some type of disability.5 AI enables people with disabilities to step into a world where their difficulties are understood and taken into account. Technology adapts and helps transform the world into an inclusive place with artificial intelligence, truly revolutionizing accessibility and inclusion for people with disabilities by removing accessibility barriers through a variety of solutions. Here are the AI Tools6 that are assisting individuals with disabilities every day, whether related to vision, hearing, mental health, learning, cognition, or mobility, or whether the disabilities are permanent, temporary, or even situational.

• AI Tools for Individuals who are Blind and Visually Impaired: Braille books have been useful to provide basic literacy education. Artificial Intelligence has created great possibilities with OrCam's MyEye (huffpost.com/entry/how-artificial-intelligence- is-helping-the-visually_b_58ed5c09e4b0145a227cb963) those who are visually impaired to read books (both texts and pictures), recognize faces, and even distinguish between products and brands. It empowers those with visual impairments to socialize within their communities by enabling them to recognize people, and it enhances mobility by enabling them to recognize traffic signals and street signs. Aira (aira.io) is live on demand access that allows connections to another human agent who can act as a visual interpreter. Microsoft's free app called Seeing AI (microsoft.com/en-us/ai/seeing-ai) allows the visually impaired to recognize faces, identify money, read handwriting, scan barcodes, and differentiate between products. Voice powered assistants such as the Amazon Echo are allowing those who are visually impaired to perform everyday tasks. Self-driving cars are great for those who are visually impaired to enable another kind of mobility beyond the local community. Other AI tools are utilized to boost contrast or get rid of color entirely, helping individuals who have colorblindness, light sensitivity, or a visual preference (with color filters one can customize the screen's color palette).
• AI Tools for Individuals who are Hearing Impaired: Widex's Evoke (widex.com/en-us/hearing-aids/evoke-smart-hearing-aids) offers a hearing aid that is wirelessly powered, connected to your smartphone, and that can learn sounds from your environment and classify them as "background noise" or "important noise". Microsoft Translator (microsoft.com/en-us/translator) translates the interpreter's spoken words and converts them into Sign Language. Automated speech recognition and voice recognition is also assisting with completion of activities such as filling prescriptions, holding interviews, and having long phone calls. SignAll (signall.us) is a platform that can automatically translate sign language into text using computer vision and natural language processing. KInTrans (kintrans.com) automates the transition of sign language to text with the main goal to provide a more natural flow of communication between those who are hearing and those who are deaf. Ava (ava.me) mobile app uses natural language processing to transcribe conversations

in real-time for the deaf and hearing-impaired to participate in any spoken communication. GnoSys AI (gnosystech.com) translates sign language into text and speech in real time. The other AI tools assist by providing real time sub-titles while watching shows, auto generating captions for the videos,

• AI Tools for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: One in 44 (2.3%) eight-year-old children have been identified with autism spectrum disorder according to an analysis of 2018 data published in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). Empower Me (brain-power.com/autism) runs on any smart glasses and connects the wearer of the glasses with a digital coach that helps the wearer interpret emotions, and gives feedback to the wearer to facilitate interaction. This product allows individuals with ASD who have trouble interpreting social cues to both learn and interact with others by providing assistance in interpreting social situations. QTrobot (luxai.com/qtrobot- for-autism) is a humanoid social robot designed to help teach children with ASD social skills.
• AI Tools for Learning Disability: These tools help individuals with ADHD or learning disabilities compensate for their academic challenges while building on their strengths. EquatIO (texthelp.com/products/equatio) easily writes math expressions, without getting bogged down in all those parentheses and square roots. Stop, Breathe & Think (stop- breathethink.com) is a meditation app which encourages users to think about how they're feeling, while also providing short mindfulness and meditation exercises tailored to their mood. Dyslexia Toolbox (chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dyslexia-toolbox), type pads, word prediction, digital overlays and text readers are all included, especially designed for individuals with dyslexia

Artificial intelligence is impacting the future of virtually every industry and every human being. Artificial intelligence has acted as the main driver of emerging technology, and will continue to act as a technological innovator for the foreseeable future. Companies like Microsoft, Amazon and IBM have committed to improving AI for accessibility and inclusion for individuals with disabilities and have numerous initiatives that will improve the quality and dignity of life for people with disabilities in the decades ahead.•

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Garima Jain, Family Support Specialist, on NJ Integrated Care for Kids (InCK), a family-centered model aimed at improving care for children on Medicaid/NJ Family Care- Monmouth and Ocean counties, at Children Family Health InstituteVNACJ. NJ InCK is VNACJ and the SPAN Parent Advocacy Network collaboration. spanadvocacy.org

References

1. Artificial Intelligence. builtin.com/artificial-intelligence
2. Homage to John McCarthy, the Father of Artificial Intelligence (AI) artificial- solutions.com/blog/homage-to-john-mccarthy-the-father-of-artificial-intelligence
3. Artificial Intelligence and Accessibility: Examples of a Technology that Serves People with Disabilities inclusivecitymaker.com/artificial-intelligence-accessibility-examples-technology- serves-people-disabilities/
4. Distinguishing between Narrow AI, General AI and Super AI medium.com/mapping-out- 2050/distinguishing-between-narrow-ai-general-ai-and-super-aia4bc44172e22
5. World Report on Disability who.int/teams/noncommunicable-diseases/sensory-func- tions-disability-and-rehabilitation/world-report-on-disability
6. Artificial Intelligence Tools for Individuals with Disability medium.com/mapping-out- 2050/distinguishing-between-narrow-ai-general-ai-and-super-ai-a4bc44172e22