Projects I get to work on are remarkable and these notes help me think and process the information I acquire day to day. Perhaps this will be beneficial to you reading this as well.
A few weeks ago work began on a product called Linggo. It's an AAC (augmented assistive communication) solution for people with speech disorders, its main focus is helping caretakers help people with ASD (autistic syndrome disorder) to communicate. It's a fascinating, noble mission. As a designer working through the problem, as you might imagine, I am overwhelmed with the amount of data and research available on a topic as sensitive as this.
Designer's job is difficult because things can always be better. Designer's job is never finished.
I am fascinated by language acquisition. I am bilingual (although I became bilingual later in life) and I'm fascinated by the way my brain processess language. I communicate fluently in Russian and English, however, I often find my cognitive function diminishing in one language over the other, if I spend much time embedded in one system. A lot of people are like that. That's precisely why systems like Spanglish and Pidgin develop — it's a simplified way to communicate for brains that are generally capable to process multiple languages given the correct circumstances.
Autism is not fully understood, you probably heard or read about it somewhere. Language processing by a person with ASD is as fascinating as language processing by anyone else, but the value of cracking the code is remarkably valuable.
I wonder:
- How do societies with varying writing systems compare with regards to number of people with communication disorders…