proloquo2go
Latest
iPad gives voice to Marin County, CA special needs students
For many first-grade students, the best way to let your teacher know what you want is to raise your hand or shout out your request. But for some special needs students, it's difficult to speak or put thoughts into words. Marin County, California is now using iPads to help these students communicate with their instructors. Through grants from a fundraising organization called Dedication to Special Education, all 19 Marin County school districts have been receiving technology to help out special needs students. What's changing the face of technology for these students is the iPad. As noted by Sarah King, the co-chairwoman of Dedication to Special Education, "We've gone from a DynaVox, which costs about US$8,000, to a $500 iPad that does essentially the same thing. And the iPad is a lot easier for students to manipulate." The organization plans to use about $85,000 of their grant money to purchase as many as 80 iPads this year, but that doesn't meet the demand of special education teachers who have requested about $176,000 in technology -- including 122 iPads. King's 19-year-old son is autistic, and uses an iPad application called Conversation Builder to learn how to converse in social situations. Other students helped by the organization are using apps Proloquo2Go and Tap to Talk, both of which use pictures to let users express what they want to say. King notes that "In the past, we've bought dozens of computers, interactive whiteboards, projectors and software. But the iPad is taking over the universe." For the special needs students who are benefiting from the iPads and applications, Dedication to Special Education and the Apple devices are giving them a voice.
Proloquo2Go gets a major update
Proloquo2Go (US$189.99) is the most fully featured augmentative and alternative communication device (AAC) we've yet covered. It provides iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad owners who do not have the ability to speak well enough to be understood (and that number is estimated to be 2.5 million Americans alone) a fully functional and quite customizable solution that rivals stand-alone devices that can cost up to $8,000. This is a universal app, and as such, it takes full advantage of the iPad screen. It's really quite a marvel. Its developer, AssistiveWare, was one of the first to release apps for the assistive technology community, and they do a great job of listening to their customers and providing support. This attention has paid off with the first major revision to Proloquo2Go taking it to version 1.4, which was released earlier this month. The update includes many new enhancements and features, including: Optimization of over 7,000 graphic symbols to take advantage of the Retina display of the iPhone 4 and new iPod touch The addition of higher quality voices The ability to backup the user customized vocabulary through iTunes File Sharing on the syncing computer (as long as the mobile device is using iOS 3.2 or better) Faster conversion of text to symbols Much quicker uploading of the saved vocabulary from the syncing computer to the app via Wi-Fi. and many other under-the-hood bug fixes. These changes make a marked difference in the feel and flow of using ProloQuo2Go. It now seems quite a bit more responsive. The update is free and results in making an already remarkable achievement that much better.
The AutoVerbal Talking Soundboard speaks for those who can't
The AutoVerbal Talking Soundboard (US$0.99 for the next few weeks) is the latest in the growing field of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices available for the iPhone, iPod touch and (best of all) the iPad. An AAC device allows the autistic or vocally challenged to communicate without the use of sign language, which requires both parties to know sign language. As a universal app, running AutoVerbal on an iPad looks great and adds 9 backgrounds to choose from. A user can use the keyboard to can type what s/he would like the app to say or tap on one of over 100 pre-programmed picture buttons to speak a word or phrase like " I need help" or "blueberry." The 10 icons in the top row can be customized to say whatever you like. The screen is laid out in 16 topic-oriented rows (custom, medical, food, emotions, simple phrases like yes or no, people, places, things, vehicles, animals, activities, colors, shapes, numbers, letters, and days of the week and months). Scroll up or down to get to the appropriate row, and scroll left or right to choose between 8 and 19 buttons per row.
The iPad could be the best mobile accessibility device on the market
In 1995 Dr. Norman Coombs, a blind professor of history at the Rochester Institute of Technology and chairman of EASI: Equal Access to Software and Information wrote that the rapid adoption of a graphical user interface (GUI) would close the door on computing for the visually impaired. This was in largely in response to the Microsoft's Windows OS, but his point was well taken regarding all GUI based computing. Speech output systems, at that time, were based on character recognition and didn't work with a GUI that relied on icons and graphics. He wrote that many impaired users had lost their employment or found their positions downgraded because they could not function in the new GUI based environment. Jump to 2010 and the introduction of the iPad. Many solutions were created along the way, but comparing that early state of affairs to what is now available on the iPad dramatically shows how far the field of assitive technology has progressed. ATMac, posted a round-up of disabled user's experiences with the iPad, which according to the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) in the UK was found to be highly accessible and probably the best mobile device on the market.
