A wearable Malossi alphabet interface for deafblind people

Deafblind people have a severe degree of combined visual and auditory impairment resulting in problems with communication, (access to) information and mobility. Moreover, in order to interact with other people, most of them need the constant presence of a caregiver who plays the role of an interpreter with an external world organized for hearing and sighted people. As a result, they usually live behind an invisible wall of silence, in a unique and inexplicable condition of isolation. In this paper, we describe DB-HAND, an assistive hardware/software system that supports users to autonomously interact with the environment, to establish social relationships and to gain access to information sources without an assistant. DB-HAND consists of an input/output wearable peripheral (a glove equipped with sensors and actuators) that acts as a natural interface since it enables communication using a language that is easily learned by a deafblind: Malossi method. Interaction with DB-HAND is managed by a software environment, whose purpose is to translate text into sequences of tactile stimuli (and vice-versa), to execute commands and to deliver messages to other users. It also provides multi-modal feedback on several standard output devices to support interaction with the hearing and the sighted people.