The increasing digitalisation of education has led to the proliferation of online teacher training initiatives, yet many of these remain largely content-driven and lack interactivity, co-creation, and contextual adaptability. Existing models often fail to foster meaningful engagement with assistive technologies (AT) and augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), limiting their effective integration into inclusive teaching practices. The VoiceKids Knowledge Hub (VKKH), an innovative Open Educational Resource (OER) developed as part of the ERASMUS+ project “2024-1-IT02-KA220-SCH-000257353 - VoiceKids: Inspiring Children's Vocal. Inclusion”, seeks to address these limitations by embedding a multidimensional, participatory framework for inclusive teacher training. This paper builds upon findings from recent projects and research on digital education in Europe, highlighting the digitalisation processes in schools. Starting from data on teachers’ digital competencies, barriers to technology adoption, and professional development needs, it offers critical insights into the challenges and opportunities associated with integrating AT into instructional design. By incorporating these insights, VKKH is designed as a sustainable, scalable, and practice-oriented OER that aligns with constructivist approaches, universal design for learning (UDL), and participatory learning methodologies. Literature suggests that teachers require hands-on, participatory training environments that promote AT as an integral component of instructional design rather than as a supplementary tool.

Text-to-Speech (TTS) technology offers numerous benefits, particularly when tailored for children. Child-specific TTS tools enhance educational outcomes by supporting literacy, language development, and engagement, especially for those with learning challenges. They also promote inclusivity by aiding children with visual, speech, or attention difficulties and enabling self-expression. These tools improve storytelling, media production, virtual assistants, and branding by creating engaging experiences for young audiences. Additionally, they empower parents and educators to provide dynamic and accessible digital content. Developing child-focused TTS systems faces challenges due to a scarcity of quality child voice resources and ethical considerations regarding the ownership of minors' voices. Despite these hurdles, the demand has led to various research efforts and commercial products focused on creating child-friendly TTS solutions. This review examines the current landscape and advancements in offering child TTS voices.

The landscape of speech synthesis technology, particularly neural Text-to-Speech (TTS), has seen rapid advancements in recent years. This review examines the current state of neural TTS systems and their availability for edge deployment. Traditionally, neural TTS models have required substantial computational resources, limiting their application to server-based implementations. However, recent innovations in model architecture and synthesis techniques are making it possible to deploy these systems on edge devices with limited processing power. These developments are crucial for applications requiring low latency and privacy-sensitive environments where data is processed locally without reliance on cloud services.

Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) can significantly enhance the quality of life (QoL) for people with acquired communication disorders (ACD). While several tools exist to assess health-related QoL, those focused on communication-related QoL (CRQoL) are limited, while none exist that focus specifically in areas that are related to AAC users. To increase accessibility, tools have to be adapted in different forms, which are specifically tailored to the needs of AAC users. Therefore, the aim of this study was the adaptation of the ASHA Quality of Communication Life Scale (ASHA QCL) into Greek and evaluate its applicability for AAC users. The GR-ASHA QCL was administered to 72 people with and without ACD, with five AAC users being interviewed about the tool. The findings revealed that GR-ASHA QCL is a valid and reliable tool, but AAC users were unable to complete it independently. This study demonstrates that the GR-ASHA QCL is a reliable and valid tool for assessing CRQoL in individuals with ACD, though modifications are needed to improve its accessibility and usability for augmentative and alternative communication users.

The implementation of high-tech communication aids often fails due to a lack of support from the social environment (Braun, 2020; Garbe & Herrmann, 2020; Erdélyi & Thümmel, 2015). Studies show that negative attitudes and a lack of expertise among caregivers significantly increase the abandonment rate (Baxter et al., 2012; Donato et al., 2018; Johnson et al., 2006; Moorcroft et al., 2019; Soto et al., 2001). In light of the technological advancements in communication over the past five years, the question arises whether and how Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) can offer new solutions to this challenge in implementing Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) aids. GenAI, based on machine learning and large language models, generates contextually relevant and coherent content such as text or images using extensive training datasets. In the form of conversational agents (e.g., ChatGPT), GenAI is capable of maintaining dialogues on nearly any topic (Gimpel et al., 2023). Despite its broad applications in communication its potential use in AAC remains largely unexplored (Lang et al., 2023; Li et al., 2022; Neamtu et al., 2019; Sennott et al., 2019). This PhD project aims to explore the potential of an AAC chatbot, addressing both opportunities and challenges of genAI-driven assistive technologies.

Nurses provide quality and safe care to critically ill patients in intensive care settings (ICU), who often experience complex communication needs, such as patients who are ventilated but awake. However, interpreting patients' communication efforts to communicate is not always possible for several reasons, such as lack of time. Additionally, nurses are typically not trained in the Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) forms of communication in order to ensure that the needs of non-speaking patients are met. The aim of the current study was to investigate ICU nurses’ AAC awareness and to determine their preference in regard to receiving training in AAC forms of communication. An electronic questionnaire with multiple-choice questions was used for data collection. The questionnaire was completed by 111 ICU nurses from the three largest public ICUs in Cyprus. The results show that participants use both unaided and aided forms of communication. However, the aided forms are limited to pen and paper and whiteboards, rather than utilizing other available assistive technology products. It was also evident that participants receive little AAC training. Yet, there is an expressed willingness by the nurses to receive training in AAC forms of communication in order to communicate with their patients.

This work explores the potential of a commercially available brain-computer interface (BCI) to enable text communication for individuals with extensive motor impairments. The system could successfully be calibrated and used to produce text. However, to make it functional for everyday communication throughout the day, improvements are needed in areas such as electrode comfort, ease of use, as well as the ability to control general computer functions. Addressing these challenges could enhance the system’s usability and make it a more viable option for continuous, daily interaction.