Day 2 May 26th,2012

Day 2 May 26, 2012 -AAC Devices

Today we focused on the app Proloquo2go which is a Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) communicative device for people who have difficulty speaking or cannot speak at all. The cost is $189.99

Here is a screen shot of Proloquo2go

We were given a case study that was about a grade 6 student who was nonverbal. He had some vision impairments as well as some fine and gross motor issues. He was  involved in his community and enjoyed movies, shopping bowling and swimming. He also spent a fair amount of time at the hospital due to an illness. Using the Proloquotogo app for I Pad or I Pod, or I phone we had to come up with a communicative set. Watch this video to see how a toddler use Proloquo.

This video is an introducion to proloquo. Check it out!

 

Here is a brief explanation of how we designed a communicative set for our case study.
On the home page we included the four milieu that he would need. We used home, school, community and hospital. These were the four main places he would use this app. Once we decided on these headings we had to think of what he would use withing the files. Under school we put the sub headings, cafeteria, school stuff, friends, playground and science. Within each of these sub headings we had to think of what phrases he would need to have the app speak for him. These included such things as "Will you play a game with me" , "I need a pencil" Depending on the situations he encountered the categories would change to reflect that. We only went 3 categories deep from the home page because that is all our student was able to handle at that time. Because our case study student was also an emergent learner having the words printed would help develop his reading abilities too. We also added phrases to the other milieu as well. We were able to customize it by adding our own pictures and pictures from the Internet. For example under the community category we put his favorite restaurant McDonald's and included phrases and pictures of his favorite items he orders.

What I learned most form this is under the home heading we had a category for his dog Blackie and we included such sentences as Can I feed Blackie etc. But Barb send you should include simple things as "Come Blackie" This really rang home with how much these devices would benefit a non verbal student and make everyday conversations we take for granted possible.

Not only does the app have every picture, phrase, comment you may ever need. You can also download pictures from the Internet or too make it  you can take personal you can customize with pictures of the people and places etc of the child's life.

It has a word prediction device on it so students would be able to type quickly words that are not on their home page. Would need to have the skills to think and type quickly.

Also has a recent setting that will bring up what they have used last, you can alos make phrases up ahead of time and store it for later. It makes for faster communication that would seem more natural during conversations. This would be important for social setting for teenagers

The following is a list of what to look for when purchasing an AAC App, it is from a designed by a teacher in the Untied States Glenda Anderson, she has been teaching special needs student for 30 years. I thought this was a great list that gave me items to look for on my search for AAC apps. A link to her blog is in my links.

Consider that these are some of the attributes that should be considered when exploring your need for an AAC app. You will want to know, does it have and/or use:

• Symbol support
• Text support
• Text-to-speech
• Phrase/Thought-based
• Word-based
• Allows customizable pages
• Allows photographs to be imported
• Digitized speech
• Synthesized speech
• Direct Select
• Auto-scanning
• Two-switch step scanning
• Auditory scanning
• Copy/Paste messages into other apps
• Simple Navigation/Operation
• Research-based
• Allows backup of pages/layouts

Here are five other AAC Apps that are available.

Tap to Talk- Free!

The biggest benefit for this app that it is free, but to customize it you pay $99. .It is also available to use on a DS system and androids.  Reviews say that it easy to use with young children.

Tobii Sonic Flex

This is available for I Pad and Android. Cost $99. Tobii Sonic Flex Lite- Free

I was able to down load the lite version for free and play around with it for a bit. Here is a video of the Tobii Sonic Flex. The light version I thought to be pretty good for free. They had different contexts for circle time, playground, doctor, lunch etc. It also had quick phrases and a key board for typing. Of course it did not have options such as changing voice or sizes of categories or ways to customize it. You could select different categories to put on the home page.

How I Feel ($2.99)

 This is an AAC app that seemed a bit different then some as it only allowed users to express feelings. Although if you have one of the larger apps you would not need this one as most apps have a feeling category included. This app may be used for a child or adult who has difficulting just expressing feelings.Here is a screen shot.
 

My Choice Board

($9.99)The main use of this app is to show a visual display of “choices” to those with limited communication skills. This gives individuals with Autism, communication delays or learning differences the opportunity to express their own specific needs and wants. It claims to be very user friendly even for young children and also gives you the option of uploading your own pictures from the Internet or camera.  Here is a screen shot.

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Discovery My Voice:$47.50

Discover MyVoice is designed to be extremely easy for caregivers to set up and users to use.

Bonus!!Part of the sale of each copy of MyVoice goes to charities that help people with communication related disabilities.
It claims to have
* Very easy setup
* Extremely easy for kids to use
* Record your own voice or let the device read the messages
* Use your own pictures of things your child is familiar with

Here is a video of a young girl using Discover My Voice.

ArtikPix - Full:

Although this app may not  for the most part be used as an AAC device I thought I would include it as it was exciting to me. This app stores flashcards specific to your needs. it is very use full for people with speech impairments. Being a parent to a child with speech delays I think this app would be great for getting my son to practise certain sounds.

May 5th- Day 1

This is our first day of class.Looking forward to learning more from Barb as the last class was amazing and I continue to use all that I learned from the first assistive tech course. We introduced ourseleves using the Pic Collage App on the IPad. It was a fun way to get to know everyone in the class.


AT Looked at Today

Pic Collage App in the classroom.

 *introduce students on the first day of school (similar to how we did it today)
*present group work in any subject
*student who has writing difficulties can do a response
*Student Star of the Week can take it home for presentation
*Visual Schedule
*Life Cycle of Animals

Prolquo2go

AAC- Augmentative Communication. Although this was an expensice APP for $200 it is great for a non verbal student. Can select sets that are approprieate for individual student. Helps students who have trouble with literacy. Talks in complete sentences.


QR Codes in the classroom

Testing
Students can gain more info about any topic
Business
Books
Adds interest , would keep students attention
Treasure Hunt
Tech Centers

Assistive Technolgy Past, Present and Future Presentation 

Definition of Assitive Technology (by Barb Welsford- Past, Present and Future Presentation

Assistive Technology is about providing access to a task and improving performance of an individual with a disability- Definition from Barbs presentation

How to we match technology to a student (quick version)
look at task, where will it be used, ease of use, teacher needs to be trained

Thoughts for the Day

AT allows students who were uninvolved in the classroom can now be extremely involved in the classroom they become apart of the class where before they were on the sidelines watching and not participating.

For students who were emabarrassed to leave the room and did not want to sit a t a large computer or even a laptop can now use something like an Ipad which is less obvious to others and the student is able to complete assigments with more ease and not drawing attention to themselves or thier disability.

In the past thousands of dollars were spent on AT and  in the present you can use one device that takes the place of computers, laptops, magnifiers, scanners and hundreds of computer programs now  the I Pad can do all of that just install the app that matches the student.

We talked alot about non verbal students and how AT allows these students to show their knowledge.

The AAC (Augmentative Communication) apps would have been fantastic to use when we adopted Caleb, as he was unable to understand us and at the time he was not speaking Chinese or English. We taught him some sign language but these apps would heve been great to allow him to get his needs and wants across to us.

Here are a list of APP's available on the adroid. All are free!
AAC Apps- quick, common language,
Gabby Tabs Lite-Free on Android For larger versions you can buy.
Aac Talking Tabs (free on android)
AAC speech sommunicator (free on android)
Jabtalk (free on android)

We discussed communication and the three components of it.  It is interesting to break down someting we do everyday and look at all that goes into the task. I think sometimes we take for granted that we can communicate without  much thought.
These are the three components needed to communicate effectively. Communication Partner, Common Language, Joint Attention