Interactive computer generation of jokes for language skill development

In order to develop their communication skills, children need to be able to experiment with language. One way to achieve this is through the use of humour, particularly wordplay such as puns. However, children with language difficulties have limited opportunities for such language play. One of the primary objectives of our project STANDUP (System To Augment Nonspeakers Dialogue Using Puns) is to compensate for this by providing software tools which allow language-impaired children to experiment with language through joke-generation.