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Patricia Pereira

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Father develops speech a device for his son

To help his son communicate, Richard devoted his energies to creating a kid-friendly form of speech technology he named Tango. The gadget prerecords a wide variety of colorful pictures and symbols depicting commonly used actions, questions and emotions.

His son, Thomas, can use the device to quickly select a thought and the little computer speaks for him, in a voice much like his own that expresses emotions with frases.

The eyeborg - an electronic device that allows colours to be perceived as sounds

Since 2004, though, he's experienced color through sound via a device he calls the "eyeborg". It's a cybernetic third eye of sorts that he keeps strapped to his head at all times. The device translates the wavelengths of different colors into audible tones, then sends them to Harbisson's inner ears via bone conduction. The eyeborg can detect 360 different hues — not nearly as many as the normal human eye is capable of detecting, but still a lot better than no color at all.

BioHug – Innovative vest for hugging experience

He didn't have to look far to find a test subject. Rembrand's son, Yankele, finds comfort in his BioHug and even wears it for fun, not just when he’s in an agitated state.

The vest provides the best of both worlds for people like Yankele – the comfort of being wrapped in an embrace without the human contact. The vest is lined with air pockets that expand to create a hug-like sensation, and wearers can program the vest to deliver random or on-demand squeezes.

Beeping eggs that allow blind people to locate eggs by sound rather than by sight

When Rachel Hyche was just a toddler, during the treat search teachers would guide her to the location of the egg and hold her hand over it. With her being an independent child, David decided to come up with his own method for her to join in the festivities. The father created a simple beeping egg that allowed Rachel to locate her eggs by sound rather than by sight.

Father creates app to help son who stutters

The technology detects stuttering in real time on a mobile phone and notifies users via an alert on a bracelet. NiNiSpeech provides people who stutter with feedback and tips on their speech fluency (like “start softly”) and gives them goals to work toward based on their therapy program. Speech therapists also can monitor their patients from an online dashboard, gaining insight into their speech in daily life. They can even listen to recordings of the stuttering.

Mother invents device to help hearing and visually impaired daughter

For children who have special vision needs, some computer programs or an iPad can be too visually complex. A mother noticed that her daughter who is blind was drawn to basic lights and she invented a learning tool that has had global impact.

Mother develops product that addresses the problem of drooling

Bibs weren’t solving anything, and she knew that older children and adults with disabilities wouldn’t want to wear bibs anyway. So she got to work, researching different types of fabrics and the processes that she could use to put together garments that were essentially their own bibs, but better. Called DribbleDry, her clothing line is absorbent, minimizes the odor and bacteria left behind by saliva, and just as importantly, looks like regular clothing.

Cancer survivor creates clothing designed to protect skin from the sun's harmful rays

For her, paradise had always been sitting on the beach in a comfortable beach chair with a good book and nothing but the sounds of the ocean to relax her. As a child, she spent summers in Cape May – a tradition she continued throughout her life. The Bahamas are only a couple hours away so every spring, she was on the beach soaking up the rays and just so she was sure she had every sun angle covered, she had a pool put in her backyard. Unfortunately, she was unaware that her favorite pastimes could cause cancer.

Man invents special leash for pets for wheelchair users

After taking some time off school, Brian returned to UC-Denver, while still continuing therapy. He graduated in 2011 with a degree in psychology, but his life experiences living with spinal cord injury, led him to pursue a different career path.

Dyslexic man creates special font

Dyslexie is a typeface font designed to mitigate some of the issues that dyslexics experience when reading. Christian Boer developed it while in college to help fight his own dyslexia.

With a heavy base line, alternating stick/tail lengths, larger-than-normal openings, and semi-curve slant, the dyslexia font ensures that each character has a unique form. When reading a text in the dyslexia font, people with dyslexia have a lot less trouble and fewer errors are made.

Adapted from: https://n.pr/2KmwaVE

Parents build app that helps caregivers of patients with cystic fibrosis

The app allows the user to set the total number of positions on the patient’s body where the treatment must occur, the number of minutes that the tapping action must be performed per position and a time period for resting in between each position. An alert displays on the phone to let the user know when it’s time to change positions, which can also be customizable.

To engage the child, animal sounds and graphics with a celebration screen appears that incorporates the patient’s name when a treatment is complete.

Father creates app to help his daughter to read

Created with the help of FundedApps, Share My ABCs allows children to trace letters and shapes and write words, as well as sharing them with loved ones. It features pictures of animals to represent upper and lower case letters and an option to write the whole name of the animal. It also allows a word and message to be traced in different colours, and what was written by the child could be saved by the adult on to a E-card to send to relatives.

Grandson creates special glasses for his grandmother

Magniglass uses a camera, micro-computer, and media glasses to give the user control over the brightness, saturation, and zoom of the world around them. The micro-computer is running an advanced algorithm that delivers a smooth yet responsive user interface. The glasses are currently in the late prototyping phases and will hit the market as soon as possible.

Christopher was an 8th grade student. He launched a Kickstarter campaign, and raised $4,726 for his invention, Magniglass.

'Pretty Pockets' - a discreet and spirited way to secure post-surgical drains

A few days after her surgery, Maryanne met another patient in the hospital who was carrying her drains around in a brown bag. Despite recovering from her own surgery, Maryanne quickly decided brown bagging it wasn’t sufficient — and thus an idea was born. She invented Pretty Pockets — a discreet and spirited way to secure post-surgical drains. Her own family got involved in making them, and now the pockets are donated to St. Joseph Medical Center and cancer patients everywhere.

Father invents Wishbone - a smart thermometer

The Wishbone thermometer, likely named after its "Y" shape, attaches to any Android or iOS smartphone to report temperature reading back to its companion apps.

Users need only hold the smartphone attachment near the child for a second or two in order to get a temperature reading. Wishbone users can also take the temperature of their babies' bottles, the weather outside or inside, bathtub or of themselves.

Father creates gadgets adapted for people with cerebral palsy

Today, Cadence mobility and speech have been limited by her condition. But with some help from her innovative dad, Darren Flaata, she can now be able to do a number of things that she couldn’t do earlier, for instance sledding, fishing, gardening and many more.

Father invents Speaks4me® - an electronic communication and voice output application device

Speaks4me allows the user to choose images in order to communicate needs or thoughts. And while it's a pretty simple system, it might make quite a difference in the life of someone who was previously unable to express himself in a manner that could be understood by those around him.

Speaks4me® is easy to learn and use, simply “drag & drop” the required picture image(s) from the main window to the “virtual” sentence strip to create a single or correctly structured multiple word sentence, then press “Speak” and Speaks4me® will speak the words.

Patient creates Living With: a line of t-shirts that give empowerment

The bright two-toned green color palette for the ADHD T-shirt is meant to represent the “energetic and hyperactive persona” of someone with ADHD. The module represents an ADHD person’s distracted train of thought and the tendency to bounce around from one thing to another. It is a visual deviation in thought and action: the color shifts, the size changes, and the bigger circle is left unfinished. The pattern is a slightly skewed repetition of the module, which creates the bigger picture of an energized, unfocused, and lively mass.

A “smart shoe” that allows people with visual impairments to walk without a cane

A videogame that helps children with cystic fibrosis to take nebulizer treatments

This can be a challenge for adults, but it’s especially difficult for energetic, short-attention span toddlers. So Kirsch, knowing how important these treatments are for his son, turned it into a game. Specifically, a videogame. He came up with and funded the making of a device that attaches to a nebulizer set and measures the pressure in the nebulizer tube. It then sends this info to a computer via USB, allowing the patient to control the results of a videogame by the speed and depth of his or her breathing.

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