OTİSTİK VE ZİHİNSEL ENGELLİ ÇOCUKLAR İÇİN DOĞAL DİL İŞLEME TABANLI BİR YARDIM ARACI: BİR BAŞLANGIÇ ÇALIŞMASI

Abstract

Engelli çocukların, eğitim ve gelişim olanaklarına mümkün olduğunca kolay ve etkin bir biçimde erişebilmesinin sağlanması, toplum için hem yasal hem de vicdani bir sorumluluktur. Yardımcı teknolojiler, engelli çocukların eğitim faaliyetlerine tam ve yeterli biçimde katılabilmesi için büyük olanaklar sunarlar. Bu makale, otistik ve zihinsel engelli çocukların eğitim ve öğretimine yardımcı olmak için geliştirilen bir yazılım aracını sunmaktadır. Bu araç ile engelli çocukların ifadeler ve onlara karşılık gelen kavramlar arasında resimler aracılığıyla bağlantı kurmalarına yardımcı olmak amaçlanmaktadır. Kullanıcının sistemle olan etkileşiminin doğal dil ifadeleriyle kurulmasını sağlamanın, iletişimi kısıtlanmış anahtar kelimelerle sınırlandırmaktan daha etkin olduğu gerçeğini dikkate alarak aracımızı bir Doğal Dil İşleme (DDİ) modülü ile donattık. Bu modül aracın omurgası olarak görev yapmakta ve doğal dil ifadelerini birleşme tabanlı (unification-based) bir dilbilgisi kullanarak anlamsal çerçeveler şeklinde çözümlemektedir. Giriş ifadeleri, ilgili resimlerle anlamsal çerçeveler aracılığıyla eşleştirilmektedir. Bu anlamsal çerçeveler, resimleri biçimsel bakımdan değil, içerikleri açısından temsil ettiği için, sistem esnek bir şekilde çalışabilmektedir.

Keywords

• Kelimeler: Yardımcı Teknoloji, Otizm, Doğal Dil İşleme (DDİ), Anlamsal Çerçeveler

AN NLP-BASED ASSISTIVE TOOL FOR AUTISTIC AND MENTALLY RETARDED CHILDREN: AN INITIAL ATTEMPT

Abstract

It is both a legal and conscientious responsibility of the society to enable children with disabilities to have access to and receive education and training as easily and effectively as possible. Assistive technology offers great opportunities for disabled students to participate in educational activities fully and adequately. This paper presents a software tool developed to assist the education and training of autistic and mentally retarded children. The tool is intended to help the disabled child establish the bridge between expressions and the concepts they refer to via relevant images. Taking into consideration the fact that enabling the user to interact with the system using natural language expressions will be much more effective compared to a system constraining the communication to a limited set of isolated keywords, the tool has been equipped with a Natural Language Processing (NLP) module. This module functions as the backbone of the tool. It analyzes natural language expressions into semantic frames using a unification-based grammar. Input expressions are mapped onto relevant images via the mediation of semantic frames. As these semantics frames represent the content of images, rather than their formal aspects, the system is able to operate on a flexible basis.

Keywords

• Assistive Technology, Autism, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Semantic Frames

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