Emojis will now help neurological patients to communicate
Gone are the days when we used to use emojis in chat messages just for fun and sometimes for the lack of words, these little symbols have now emerged as a proper communication tool. A new app aims to use emoticons to help people, with neurological disorders, to communicate without having to read or write. Not just a silly thing anymore, is it?
Samsung's app for aphasia patients
Samsung Electronics' Italian subsidiary and speech therapist Francesca Polini has created an app called Wemogee to help people with aphasia, a language-processing disorder that makes it difficult to read, write or talk. For now, the app supports English and Italian and its Android version will be available in the Google Play Store from April 28, while the iOS version is expected to follow suit.
How does Wemogee work?
The app has two modes, i.e. visual and textual. The visual mode has emojis, arranged to create around 140 phrases that are enlisted under six categories. Aphasic patients can choose and send those emoji-phrases to another user. When a non-aphasic user receives the message, Wemogee translates the emoji combinations into text and then translates their reply back to emoji combinations for aphasic users.
Why did the creators think an app might help?
The developers believe that this way of communication through emojis will be able to break communication barriers that aphasia patients face on a daily basis, enabling them to convey their emotions through this medium without having to dwell on their ailment. Polini also said that this app would be helpful because, "aphasic patients understand emojis because they depict all aspects of emotions."
Emojis to describe abuse or domestic violence
We have emojis to describe our happiness, our activities even our moods. But what about abuse, pain or violence? BRIS, a Swedish non-profit children's rights organization has developed "Abused Emoji" in 2015, making it possible for children to describe abuse without difficulty, so that, quick action could be taken to apprehend the guilty party.
New emojis are being generated regularly
Unicode released 69 new emojis in March this year, which for the first time include emojis of a mermaid, a broccoli, a cricket, a T-rex, and others. This new list also includes some very meaningful emojis, such as, a girl wearing a hijab, a mother breastfeeding her child and others. These will enter the Android and iOS devices by this fall.
