News

A group of people posing together outside outside OHSU's CDRC Building.

The Consortium for Accessible Multi-Modal Brain Interfaces (CAMBI) team met for a 2-day retreat in Portland, at OHSU in October 2022. This meeting was our first in-person encounter since 2019. We discussed and celebrated past accomplishments, we planned goals, activities and collaborations for the 2022-2023 grant year, and we became re-acquainted with our engagements, commitments and passions. Our work can be viewed on this website at the BCI link, and at www.cambi.tech . Here is a picture of the team. From left to right, we are: Back row: Dr. Eran Klein, Matthew Lawhead, Dr. Deniz Erdogmus, Dr. Barry Oken, Dr. Keith Vertanen, Dylan Gaines, Dan Klee, Michelle Kinsella, Dr. Melanie Fried-Oken. Front row: Dr. Tales Imbiriba, Dr. Scott Spaulding, Basak Celik, Dr. Betts Peters, Tab Memmott, Angelina Bieker, Greg Bieker, Mark Cache.

Speak My Language! Using Visual Symbols for Supported Decision Making by People Who Use AAC

with Foundation award to the OHSU UCEDD Dr. Melanie Fried-Oken, PI

The OHSU UCEDD recently completed a project in partnership with Community Vision - Assistive Technology Lab to develop a symbol-based Patient Decision Aids for Supported Decision Making (PDAs for SDM) for adults with I/DD who use AAC with limited literacy skills. We conducted focus groups with AAC users about symbol and literacy needs for informed consent and chose Carpal Tunnel Syndrome as the first health topic for a PDA; 2) developed symbol-based PDAs for both Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and informed consent; 3) we validated the PDAs; 4) we evaluated their use with health care providers who treat individuals with carpal tunnel syndrome; and 5) we are in the process of disseminating the products.

Learn more about the symbol-based patient decision aids for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and Informed consent

Please join us in congratulating Betts Peters, Ph.D., CCC-SLP!

A photo of Betts Peters smiling in cap-and-gown holding her Ph.D. degree from Portland State University at her graduation.

Betts recently completed her Ph.D. in Systems Science at Portland State University. This amazing accomplishment will further support the success of the REKNEW lab as well as the field of Augmentative and Alternative Communication and those who rely on this technology. Thank you Betts for your continued dedication to this important work!

OHSU's UCEDD Turns 50

The Oken Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory Collaborates with Northeastern University

The Oken Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory recently completed an experiment in partnership with collaborators at Northeastern University to quantify attention-related changes in a brain-related oscillatory signal, alpha, during a BCI speller paradigm. EEG data were collected from a group of generally healthy participants who completed multiple instances of the BciPy RSVP calibration task. Subsequently, researchers measured attention-related changes in both alpha and two ERP signals, N200 and P300. These signals all showed changes related to visual attention, but alpha and ERP changes were not related to one another. These data were presented virtually on November 10th at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience; a manuscript is currently in preparation.

Download the research poster from the presentation

ReKnew team members lead OHSU Saturday Academy session

A class of kids at desks wearing PPE masks listening to a woman sitting in the middle of the room giving a presentation and holding a visual aid.

Betts Peters, PhD, CCC-SLP and Michelle Kinsella OTR/L  co-presented the session "Speech and Language Pathology (SLP) and  Occupational Therapy (OT) as a Career Path" during Saturday Academy, on June 29, 2022.  Approximately 15 middle school students attended the presentation, which included overviews on the career fields of Speech Language Pathology and Occupational Therapy.  Students also had the opportunity to trial augmentative and alternative communication devices.

ISACC Connect Virtual Conference 2021

The REKNEW team was well represented at this year's virtual meeting!

We presented the following poster during the August 9-12 2021 conference:
User-centered design influences the integration of multimodal access in an AAC-BCI system

BCI Society Workshops

The REKNEW team was well represented this year at this virtual meeting! 

We presented two workshops and three poster sessions June 7-9 2021. Find more information here under "Presentations."

NeuroAbilities Webinar

Melanie Fried-Oken and Betts Peters participated in a webinar sponsored by the United Nations' g3ict NeuroAbilities Program on April 29, 2021.

New release Bloomberg News video about our Brain Computer Interface work

Deirdre McLaughlin Presents at ATIA Conference 2020

Woman gives live presentation at a conference.

Deirdre McLaughlin, REKNEW lab Research Associate and Speech-Language Pathologist, was an Education Spotlight Session panelist at the Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA) conference.  Her presentation EDU Spotlight:  Getting Off to a Great Start AT in Early Intervention was presented to an audience of AT Specialists, educators, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, family members of AAC users, and paraprofessionals.  The ATIA conference was held Jan. 29-Feb. 1, 2020 in Orlando, FL.

BCI supplemental awards

ISAAC 2020 Conference logo

Betts Peters attends neurotechnologies summer course

Woman wearing a brain computer interface cap.
Betts Peters, Research Associate, checks her brain signals before typing a few words with the P300 Speller in BCI 2020, a brain-computer interface software suite.

Betts Peters, REKNEW Research Associate, attended the National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies Summer Short Course, held July 8-26, 2019, in Albany, NY. This NIH-sponsored course brought together 24 researchers, students, engineers, and clinicians for a jam-packed program of lectures and hands-on training activities involving all aspects of brain-computer interfaces and other adaptive neurotechnologies. This was a unique opportunity to meet and network with other up-and-coming researchers, learn from experts in the field, and try out some fascinating technology.

ReKnew team members lead OHSU Saturday Academy session

Woman holding communication system device
Michelle Kinsella, OT demonstrates the use of an E-Tran (Eye Transfer) board, a communication system which enables people to select letters with their eyes.

Michelle Kinsella, OT and Deirdre McLaughlin, SLP co-presented the session "SLP or OT as a Career Path" during Saturday Academy, conducted June 24, 2019.  Approximately 20 11th and 12th grade students attended the presentation, which included overviews on the career fields of Speech Language Pathology and Occupational Therapy.  Students also had the opportunity to trial augmentative and alternative communication devices.

Betts Peters and Melanie Fried-Oken present at Research Think Tank

Betts Peters, M.A.. CCC-SLP and ReKnew project director Dr. Melanie Fried-Oken participated in the  Doctoral Student AAC Research Think Tank, held May 19-21, 2019 at Penn State University.  Dr. Fried-Oken presented Supporting the Meaningful Participation of Persons with Disabilities in Research.  Betts Peters, Ph.D. candidate, presented Beyond Eye Gaze:  Alternative Access for Adults with Severe Speech and Physical Impairments.  The Think Tank brought together over 35 doctoral students and faculty to discuss strategies for developing research careers in AAC.

Research Week 2019 Interview

For Research Week 2019, clinician-scientists were interviewed daily.  Read ReKnew Projects director Melanie Fried-Oken’s contribution here.

REKNEW members present at OHSU Research Week

Two people presenting a research poster
Dan Klee and Deirdre McLaughlin present during OHSU Research Week

The REKNEW Team presented two posters at OHSU Research Week, which began May 13, 2019.  Performance Across Consecutive Calibrations with the RSVP Keyboard™ Brain-Computer Interface in People with Severe Speech and Physical Impairments was led by Brandon Eddy, M.A. CCC-SLP and Neurofeedback in Alzheimer’s disease was presented by Deirdre McLaughlin, M.S. CCC-SLP.

Aimee Mooney presents at the Aphasia Access Leadership Summit

Aimee Mooney, M.S. CCC-SLP, presenting at the Annual Aphasia Access Leadership Summit in Baltimore, MD in March 2019.

In collaboration with Northwestern University, Portland State University and OHSU, Aimee Mooney, M.S. CCC-SLP attended The 3rd Annual Aphasia Access Leadership Summit in Baltimore, MD in March 2019 to share the Reknew lab’s work on interventions for people with Primary Progressive Aphasia. Presentations included:

  • Mooney, A., Morhardt, D., Fried-Oken, M., Saxon, M., Roberts, A.C., Khayum, R., Rogalski, E. (March 2019). Group intervention in Primary Progressive Aphasia:    developing effective models to drive successful communication participation, engagement and support.
  • Khayum, R., Mooney, A., Fried-Oken, M., Roberts, A.C., Rogers, L, Esparza, M, Rogalski, E. (March 2019).  Application of the life participation approach for individuals living with primary progressive aphasia.
  • Khayum, R., Mooney, A., Fried-Oken, M., Roberts, A.C., Rogers, L, Esparza, M, Rogalski, E. (March 2019).  Primary progressive aphasia and technology: Creative “app”lications to promote increased life participation.

REKNEW members present their work at an Assistive Technology conference

A screenshot of REKNEW's online tool "Thinking about Thinking for AAC."

REKNEW team members Dr. Melanie Fried-Oken, Aimee Mooney and Michelle Kinsella presented the on line interactive tool, Thinking about Thinking for AAC (TaT4AAC), at Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA) conference on January 30, 2019. This national conference is attended by the assistive technology industry, including Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) specialists, special educators and other rehabilitation professionals. The TaT4AAC is a resource designed to provide summaries from literature in the fields of AAC and cognition. Clinicians and AAC technology developers access information regarding the attention, memory, and executive function demands that different AAC technology features impose upon people with complex communication needs. This online tool will be widely available free on charge in October 2019 as a resource to increase the awareness of cognition and AAC technologies.

AAC State of the Science articles are now available

Front cover of the Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) Journal.

At this time, the AAC journal is publishing a special issue from the RERC on AAC State of the Science Conference, held in Washington DC in July, 2018. For a limited time, there are advance on line publications available. We include the articles here.

Aimee Mooney presents webinar for the United States Society for AAC (USSAAC)

Aimee Mooney, M.S., CCC-SLP

Communication supports, referred to as AAC, are integral to medical speech-language pathology. This Webinar entitled "Application of Systematic Instruction principles for training use of AAC in adults", discusses effective instructional methods for training use of AAC. Participants will learn to identify personal, program and program characteristics that support successful learning, acceptance and integration of AAC. The elements of Systematic Instruction and stages of learning (in the context of communication rehabilitation) are defined and applied clinically. Finally, an instructional package for immediate application to clinical practice is shared.
Access the webinar

REKNEW team members teach students at OHSU Saturday Academy

Betts Peters Saturday Academy

REKNEW team members Brandon Eddy and Betts Peters gave a presentation to Saturday Academy students attending a Medical Camp for grades 6-8. The session included brief overviews of speech-language pathology, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), and brain-computer interface (BCI). Students had the opportunity to try using AAC devices with head and eye tracking, and to observe a BCI typing session. We hope to have inspired some future clinicians or engineers to explore the field of assistive technology!

REKNEW team presents at 2018 International BCI Society Meeting

The seventh International BCI Society Meeting took place on May 21-25, 2018 in Pacific Grove, California. The purpose of the conference is to review the state of the science, address key issues critical to further progress, and promote the education and participation of young researchers. The conference was well attended by over 400 guests including research scientists, clinicians, software developers, engineers, industry representatives, students, and more.

BCI Team at Asilomar 2018
Team members attending included: (front row, L to R) Bruce Wojciechowski, Shiran Dudy, Tab Memmott, Paula Gonzalez, Yeganeh Marghi, Betts Peters, Brandon Eddy and (back row, L to R) Melanie Fried-Oken, Murat Akcakaya, Deniz Erdogmus, Barry Oken, Steven Bedrick, Michelle Kinsella

The REKNEW Lab was well represented at the conference, providing several poster presentations and a three-hour workshop presentation.

Click the links below to access PDF images of the REKNEW team's poster presentations. Abstracts will be available soon on the BCI Society website. Our team's presentations included:

Michelle Kinsella presenting "Eye Tracking, Vision, and BCI"

A workshop entitled "Eye Tracking, Vision, and BCI" was collaboratively presented by members of our team (including Michelle Kinsella, pictured left) as well as Dr. Bruce Wojciechowski, Dr. Deniz Erdogmus, and Dr. Boyla Mainsah. 

Steven Bedrick and Shiran Dudy presented a workshop entitled "Natural Language Processing &BCI". Natural Language Processing (NLP) is the computational analysis of spoken or written language, and is an important part of many Augmentative and Alternative Communication systems. The workshop covered a wide range of topics, including tutorials on language modeling and vocabulary personalization, discussion of icon-based typing systems, and considerations around user privacy. It was workshop was attended by more than twenty people from five countries, with participants from industry, academia, and government.

Melanie Fried-Oken awarded ASHA fellowship and outstanding researcher of the year award

Dr. Melanie Fried-Oken ASHA Fellow 2018

Dr. Melanie Fried-Oken recently became a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). This honor is given to members of this national organization who are recognized for their leadership and scientific contributions to the field of Communication Sciences and Disorders. Melanie was awarded this honor at the 2017 ASHA Convention, which was held in Los Angeles, CA. This same year, Melanie received the Outstanding Researcher of the Year award from the Oregon Speech-Language-Hearing Association. She acknowledges the commitment, integrity and input of the REKNEW team for adding evidence to the field of AAC. She states that she could not have received these awards without their collaboration.