For years, Barbara Tresness struggled to learn how to communicate with her son, Graham Tresness. As a result of cerebral palsy, he communicates nonverbally through eye gaze technology, which is a device that tracks a person’s eye movements and translates it into speech.

Graham Tresness’ condition served as the inspiration behind his mother’s $100,000 donation to the Burton Blatt Institute, which will help fund Communication Hope through Assistive Technology. The program, called CHAT, will help youth with disabilities that affect their verbal communication to open their voices to the world, according to an April 1 BBIpress release.

The BBI is an organization affiliated with Syracuse University that assists people with disabilities.

“There are so many ways that technology can help these children develop their own voice,” said Peter Blanck, a professor of law and chairman of the BBI. “This new grant is an attempt to apply that principle to a new generation of young kids with disabilities.”

The CHAT program includes CHAT Camp and CHAT Central, two separate initiatives in which families with children with disabilities can reach out to others who share the same experiences and develop a supportive community, Blanck said. Beginning in August, CHAT Camp will allow nonverbal children to interact with each other and will provide families with training in nonverbal communication technology, he said.

CHAT Central will be a website that creates national online communities for parents of nonverbal children, Blanck said. The program will also include interactive games and a socialization feature that will allow users to communicate with mentors and other children with disabilities.

“It was very difficult for our family to find information to learn more about Graham’s condition,” said Tresness, who is also a member of the BBI’s Board of Advisors. “The website will be able to provide these families with the resources to find what is available in the city of Syracuse and nationwide.”

Tresness said her son has experienced a great deal of difficulty in utilizing eye gaze technology in school because it involves bringing a computer everywhere he goes. Many teachers limited how he could use the device, so the 12-year-old boy had to constantly prove that the computer was necessary for communication, she said.

“When an adult loses communication from a stroke, everyone accepts that they cannot talk, and is very receptive to finding technology to bridge that gap,” Tresness said. “Many times, when a disabled child utilizes this technology, people aren’t receptive and don’t understand the communication technologies they rely on.”

The CHAT program will help facilitate community-wide understanding of these technologies that children like Graham Tresness rely on, his mother said. She hopes nonverbal children won’t have to prove that devices, such as computers and iPads, register eye movements, which helps them to communicate.

For the last few months, Tresness’ son has been visiting the BBI and utilizing the CHAT technology by using computers to learn to communicate nonverbally with other children who have communication problems. This summer, she said, the CHAT program hopes to bring several children to the BBI facilities who would like to interact with her son.

The Tressness’ gift to the BBI comes from a desire to make the world a better place for children with disabilities everywhere, Blanck said. The CHAT program will improve communication for people with or without disabilities, he said.

“Oftentimes in academics you can pursue academic research, but it’s rare that there is a worldwide impact,” Blanck said. “Through this program, we really hope to touch the lives of people in Syracuse and beyond.”

Published on April 7, 2013 at 11:12 pm

Contact Annie: apalme05@syr.edu