TITLE: A SYNTACTIC PREDICTOR TO ENHANCE COMMUNICATION FOR DISABLED USERS AUTHOR: Julie A. Van Dyke COMMENTS: (c) 1991 Julie A. Van Dyke ABSTRACT: Disorders such as Cerebral Palsy and Lou Gehrig's disease produce severe physical disabilities that leave their victims unable to communicate in typical ways. In order to overcome this barrier, rehabilitation engineers have developed communication aids which make use of electronic technology to shift the burden of communication away from the user. Some strategies that have been employed include prediction techniques that use statistics to predict the user's next keystrokes. Unfortunately, the statistical data used in these systems is often biased or incomplete and consequently, these systems have had only limited success. This document describes a solution which combines natural language processing techniques and linguistic theory to produce a prediction system that, unlike previous systems, models our natural rules of syntax. This allows the syntactic predictor to make rule-based, linguistic determinations about what words can follow those already processed. It can be used with other devices to reduce the effort required of the user by predicting what word forms he or she is likely to type next. Because this system models human linguistic knowledge, it provides a more natural solution to the communication problem than do many other systems currently available to disabled users.