Assistive social interaction for non-speaking people living in the community

The move from institution to community care has resulted in more disabled and elderly people receiving care at home. For some, their disability or frailty prevents them from being involved in social activities outside the home, resulting in unacceptable social isolation. This problem is compounded if the person has a speech or language impairment. In general, social interaction is important for people, and they often use stories, pictures and other media to present important events to others, In this paper, we will describe a communication service designed to provide non-speaking people with a means to interact socially when living independently, based on the sharing of stories using pictures and other media.