Modeling an eye gaze task for people with PIMD

This research studies an eye gaze training task that is used with people with Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities (PIMD) to help them in learning to use an eye tracking device. These individuals have difficulty communicating, but eye tracking technology, together with a communication computer, can serve a form of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) to overcome the physical barrier of communication that is faced. By improving the training process, more people with PIMD can profit from this technology. For this research, data coming from an eye tracker is studied and characterized. Then, a training task is defined and formulated. Using these findings, a method is proposed to evaluate user performance in the given task, based on accuracy and fixation duration. This result can help professionals involved in the training to judge the progression of the user, and can be used to improve the task by developing a method which uses Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment (DDA) to adapt the task to the individual and make it more effective.