Overcoming Communication Difficulties:
A Platform for Alternative Communication

We present in this paper an alternative communication system for disabled persons. Alternative communication primarily relies on an alternative access to the computer and has to take into account the communication situation together with the user’s characteristics. The PCA system (where PCA stands for Alternative Communication Platform) proposes various techniques and accessibility methods devoted to assist the user in verbal and non-verbal communication. The homogeneity of the system warrants a comfortable switch between the different communication techniques, both in terms of accessibility and messages style. PCA makes use of generic resources: a French lexicon of more than 300 000 forms with intrinsic frequency of occurrences and morphosyntactic information and a pictograms basis of 750 icons allowing an efficient basic communication. The PCA system is moreover evolving. Thanks to its training module, the system builds a user’s model by learning the personal habits during each use of the system. PCA includes also a tool allowing to customize the organisation of the pictograms basis and to add new icons to the user’s personal lexical material. The upgradeability of the system also suggests that PCA can be used as a re-educational tool. The platform has been developed by a consortium of laboratories and French associations for disabled persons.