Communicative Interaction with and without Eye-Gaze Technology between Children and Youths with Complex Needs and Their Communication Partners

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1.The Abstract should be polished to highlight the contributions; 

2.The structure of this paper should be provided in the last paragraph of Section 1;

3.The title of Section 2 should be  changed into "Proposed approach";

4.'Functional risk-oriented integrated preventive maintenance considering product quality loss for multistate manufacturing systems','Mission Reliability Evaluation for Fuzzy Multistate Manufacturing System Based on an Extended Stochastic Flow Network' and other related newly published paper in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health should be added and discussed.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for the reviews and valuable comments to improve this manuscript. Please see specific answers in the point-to-point responses attached. All changes related to the comments are highlighted in red color in the revised manuscript.

Thank you for the opportunity to improve the manuscript.

Sincerely yours, 

Corresponding author 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors present a study based on video analysis to evaluate if using EGAT is beneficial for people suffering from severe mobility and communication impairments, with respect with using NEGAT.

My main concerns with the study are the size of the study sample and its heterogeneity. However, authors clearly state it as main limitation of the study, and then it makes it clearly that these results are preliminar and cannot be extrapolated.

It is also acknowledge that validating the coding with an independent coder and calculating kappa, and using a three-tier method to analyze heterogenous data strengthens the results.

I have just a small question that could maybe be more clearly stated in the paper: Can a given move be coded with more than two codes? In the example you provide in line 236, "Red!" is clearly informative (IN), but depending on the voice tone, it could also be a self/shared expression (SSE) reflecting happiness or security, for example. Have you considered this, or each move only has one code associated?

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for the reviews and positive comments on this manuscript. Please see our answers in the point-to-point responses as attached. Specific changes related to the comment are highlighted in red color in the revised manuscript.
Thank you for the opportunity to improve the manuscript.

Sincerely yours,
 
Corresponding author

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

General Comments

In this paper, the authors research characterizes the communicative interaction between children and younth with complex need and their communication partners when EGAT is or is not used.

Attached suggestion of changes that should be addressed to improve the manuscript.

Specify Comments

#1 Materials and Methods.  Being the age range so wide. How did communication skills difference according to age? What about visual ability? Explain, please.

#2 Table 1. In visual function, unify criteria. All with the refractive error or none. Did the patient with myopia not have glasses?

#3 Paragraph 3.3 Individual case studies. Explain more about Laura's refractive error and how it affects the data obtained.

#4 Line 537 – 538. Refers to visual impairments and insufficient eye control skills. Could you specify the type of impairment? Would it improve performance with proper optical correction?

Author Response

Mar 5, 2021

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your valuable suggestions. We have revised the manuscript based on your comments. The revised manuscript, ijerph-1093819 has been uploaded, boldface font indicating the revised part. We also shorten the Discussion session slightly to make it concise. The revised parts in the manuscript have been proofread by an English native-speaking professional from Anchor English. The point-by-point responses file has been uploaded as well. Please see the attachment.

The revised manuscript has not been previously published and is not being considered for publication elsewhere. All authors listed have read and approved the content of the manuscript. We have no conflicts of interest to disclose. We would be grateful if you could consider this for publication in the special issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Sincerely yours

Yu Hsin Hsieh

corresponding author

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

General comments

Reporting topic is not structural in the content and there are a number of problems in method. As there are a number of omissions in the method of this study, the value of this topic under review is questionable.

Abstract

Lack of structure, even there is no heading required, authors have clear information as this order “Aim”, “Method”, “Results” and Discussion/Conclusion”

Introduction-content

-Research questions and objectives are not clear.

Methods: general

It may be clearer if methods follow this order “Design”, “Participants”, “Outcome measures”. It may be better to include “Procedure” in the “Design”.

Methods: Design

This is missing. The procedure should be in this part.

Methods: Participants

This part should have information of recruitment and ethics approval. What authors provided need to be in the result section.

Methods: Outcome measures

Authors split outcome measures all over method, so this makes very difficult to catch what authors want to do.

Results: content

Authors didn’t provide proper format for results. For example, a table to describe “Characteristics of participants” and summary of their characteristics.

Discussion: content

As there are a number of problems in the method and lack of results, discussion hasn't been reviewed.

Author Response

Mar 5, 2021

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your valuable suggestions. We have revised the manuscript based on your comments. The revised manuscript, ijerph-1093819 has been uploaded, boldface font indicating the revised part. We also shorten the Discussion session slightly to make it concise. The revised parts in the manuscript have been proofread by an English native-speaking professional from Anchor English. The point-by-point responses file has been uploaded as well. Please see the attachment.

The revised manuscript has not been previously published and is not being considered for publication elsewhere. All authors listed have read and approved the content of the manuscript. We have no conflicts of interest to disclose. We would be grateful if you could consider this for publication in the special issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Sincerely yours

Yu Hsin Hsieh

corresponding author

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors present the article entitled “Communicative Interaction With and Without Eye-Gaze

Technology Between Children and Youth With Complex Needs and Their Communication Partners”. The manuscript is easy to read, but there are some concerns before being accepted for publication:

-The manuscript needs a minor grammar revision. Avoid using apostrophes throughout the manuscript.

In the Introduction section, please add an image related to EGAT to improve the background.

In Table 1, put the heading "name" in the column of study subjects.

Add a nomenclature table to the manuscript.

Lines 213-221: A description of some concepts and calculations referring to the table are shown. However, it is important that it be discussed in the main text.

The Materials and Methods section explains in a general way the main concepts of the research. However, it is confusing to identify a methodology that allows answering the research question and the three hypotheses. It is recommended to show the proposed method in a flow chart to answer the hypothesis and the research question.

How were obtained the Rater per minute and kappa values?

Improve the Conclusions section according to the objective set. Was the research question answered? Were the hypotheses affirmed?

Table 2, footer: no need to redefine EGAT and NEGAT

Improve the quality of Figures 1 and 2. Make all of the pictures in vector quality.

Author Response

Mar 5, 2021

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your valuable suggestions. We have revised the manuscript based on your comments. The revised manuscript, ijerph-1093819 has been uploaded, boldface font indicating the revised part. We also shorten the Discussion session slightly to make it concise. The revised parts in the manuscript have been proofread by an English native-speaking professional from Anchor English. The point-by-point responses file has been uploaded as well. Please see the attachment.

The revised manuscript has not been previously published and is not being considered for publication elsewhere. All authors listed have read and approved the content of the manuscript. We have no conflicts of interest to disclose. We would be grateful if you could consider this for publication in the special issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Sincerely yours

Yu Hsin Hsieh

corresponding author

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for attending my comments. This is good work. I recommend improving figures 2 and 3. In the last one, vectorize it, and use the LaTex command for subfigure.

Author Response

Mar 10, 2021

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comments. We have revised the manuscript and improved Figures 2 and 3. Please see the point-by-point responses file as attached.

Sincerely yours

Yu Hsin Hsieh

corresponding author

Author Response File: Author Response.docx