Ljudskrapan/the Soundscraper: Sound exploration for children with complex needs, accommodating hearing aids and cochlear implants

This paper describes a system for accommodating active listening for persons with hearing aids or cochlear implants, with a special focus on children with complex needs, for instance at an early stage of cognitive development and with additional physical disabilities. The system is called Ljudskrapan (or the Soundscraper in English) and consists of a software part in Pure data and a hardware part using an Arduino microcontroller with a combination of sensors. For both the software and hardware development, one of the most important aspects was to always ensure that the system was flexible enough to cater for the very different conditions that are characteristic of the intended user group. The Soundscraper has been tested with 25 children with good results. An increased attention span was reported, as well as surprising and positive reactions from children where the caregivers were unsure whether they could hear at all. The sound generating models, the sensors and the parameter mapping were simple, but provided a controllable and complex enough sound environment even with limited interaction.