My 5 year old nephew who has Cerebral Palsy already has an eye gaze computer that cost somewhere in the ballpark of $12,000 (courtesy of a grant from the Oregon Department of Transportation). That works by tracking eye movement using a sensor bar at the top, but both he and the computer need to be perfectly positioned for it to work. It’s not quite the easiest system to work, but it allows him to speak.

Something like this would probably be a lot easier and more comfortable to use and would be a whole lot cheaper:

Once commercial versions are available, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Accessible Computing Foundation creates open source drivers for it or works to get the manufacturers to create them, that is if it doesn’t send the signals directly to the computer as mouse movements.  There’s already a lot of assistive technology out there, but getting some cheaper (or free) options would enable more people who need it to have access to it and it would also save tax payers a lot of money.

(Via Scientific American)