Location: Columbia Regional Program at Wilcox, 833 NE 74th Ave, Portland, OR, 97213 (Columbia Room)
Goal: In this hands-on training we will be exploring a variety of iPad apps that support students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). We will be focusing on Video Modeling, Social Stories, and Visual Schedules. Participants will have time to explore the apps as well as create their own videos, stories, and schedules.
Students can use this app to practice spelling words that have been given or the student can use the built in lists that start with CVC words and get more advanced.
This app includes reinforcement activities, built in spelling lists as well as the ability to create your own spelling lists. A variety of settings are included such as ability to remove profanity, hint buttons, letter size, check for capitalization, and different keyboards.
"It is a great way for kids to do spelling, when learning to spell words it can be difficult to hand write the words because of the added fine motor. This gives the student the opportunity to focus just on the words."
TouchChatHD, an iPad app suite by Saltillo that contains a range of intuitively organized, preprogrammed yet customizable augmentative and alternative (AAC) page sets that can grow with the user. There are seven synthesized voices available in addition to the ability to record speech. The standard sets included in the suite are similar to the language sets available for Saltillo’s Chat PC, a dedicated AAC device: Vocab PC, MultiChat 15, Primary Landscape and Primary Portrait. A Spelling page set with word prediction is also available for literate users. Additionally, Nancy Inman’s WordPower 24 and 42 page sets which have been popular on some dedicated communication devices, can be purchased as add-ons to the base set.
Cells can be customized using the icons from TouchChat Suite’s SymbolStix library, which contains upwards of 10,000 symbols. The ability to import digital images allows you to further personalize pages. TouchChatHD contains many built in features which provide the ability to customize the page sets to the unique needs of the individual. Page animation, navigation to pages, button dwell and release time, background color, button and gesture feedback sounds are just a few of the features. Tilt screen is a unique feature whereby tilting the screen results in filling the whole I Pad screen with the message you have created in large letters. The TouchChat HD app is designed primarily for direct touch access and is not set up at this time to accommodate individuals who need to access via scanning, head mouse, mouse emulation or eye control.
Having access to a range of communication page sets, facilitates finding a set that can be customized to meet the unique needs of the individual, thus reducing the amount programming time. The dynamic page sets are structured and organized with navigational links and utilize grammar prediction allowing for more efficient navigation. The powerful combination of core vocabulary, grammar prediction and frequently used phrases provide a robust tool that supports the development of language.
The range of page sets and flexibility make TouchChat HD a tool to consider trialing as part of an AAC assessment.
The Scene Speak app is one of several visual scene display (VSD) apps designed to create interactive pages and communication books for communication and literacy purposes. The contextual features of visual scene communication displays enable communication partners to be active and supportive participants in the communication process.
The Scene Speak app comes with a range of pre-made displays along with the ability to customize visual scenes using the user’s own photos or from other digital sources. The scenes are designed by creating hotspots /sound areas where speech can be added by either recording or using one of five synthesized voices. There is not a built in option for hybrid scenes to add a language strip to the visual scenes as is available in the Scene and Heard App.
“I have used this app with a 3 year old beginning communicator who was not responding to traditional augmentative communication grid displays. We developed several visual scenes around family members and activities that she enjoyed. One particular scene was a picture of her reading with her grandfather. The hotspots were centered around labeling the child and her grandfather and “read book” as a hotspot on the book. Initially she was reluctant to access the hotspots but after some modeling and scaffolding from her partner her participation significantly increased. In addition to active engagement with the activity more vocalization was noted as she became more comfortable with the activity."
The Scene & Heard App by tbox apps http://www.tboxapps.com/ is one of several visual scene display (VSD) apps currently available.
The Scene and Heard app affords the ability to create interactive visual scenes using photos, google images and videos. The app contains a number of pre-made visual scenes for immediate use, however the ability to create your own VSDs is where the real power lies. When creating your own scenes, “hotpsots” can be programmed within the images to perform a number of behaviors including speaking, launching a video and linking to other videos or symbols. For example you could upload a photo of a child at a birthday party and create hotspots of the cake, child blowing out the candles and the party hat. The hotspots can then be programmed with recorded speech ie. candles, Happy Birthday to you, or a comment which the child can select and communicate with communication partners.
The app has a hybrid feature where you can add a picture communication symbol( PCS) strip to be placed at the bottom of the visual scene to further support receptive and expressive communication. There is also a simple user friendly built in back up system which allows you to email the scene to yourself or another person for retrieval later. The app is switch accessible via the Therapy Box Switch Box or RJ Cooper Interface there is also the option to use the screen as a switch in the “touch anywhere” mode.
Visual scene display apps are a great intermediary tool to be considered for early communicators who are not quite ready for symbolic displays and are needing added contextual support. Some other creative uses of Scene and Heard App include relaying stories, social stories, video modeling and creation of simple voice output communication boards. There is a free Lite version available.
A full-featured text-to-speech app featuring word prediction. The layout includes a QWERTY keyboard, as well as notepad for translating handwritten text into text-to-speech. This app may be a good tool to trial with students with limited speech but developing literacy skills, including students using switch access.
Besides translating text to speech, users can send text as e-mails, or via social media tools like Facebook. The app allows users to save phrases under various categories, as well as pull up conversational histories. The app comes with nine adult male and female voices. The app may be accessed by direct touch, or 1 or 2 switch visual scanning. Auditory scanning is available for some, but not all, selections.
This app has worked well in trials with users who have literacy skills and are comfortable with keyboard use, particularly those who are interested in having access to e-mail and social media, as well as voice output
Pic Collage is a quick and easy way to organize pictures into a collage. This app has options for freeform collages, cutouts, filters, borders, stickers, and text.
"I like the fact that it's different from your usual photo display/presentation application. Students can add photos that they can then talk about to demonstrate understanding of a variety of topics."
Notability is a note taking app that allows for the collection and storage of typed notes, hand-written content, pictures, and audio.
"Notability is used in day-to-day consultative work. It allows me to take meeting minutes, consult notes, and integrate photos of documents as well as images. I am able to create categories or file folders, and then sort documents within those categories by color. I can password protect sensitive information, which is a powerful feature. I can search for keywords to quickly and easily locate documentation from a meeting. I can also email my notes to anyone as long as I am on the wireless network.
Notability has allowed me to go paperless with my notes. If I want to send a copy to an educator, it's simple to email. The ability to password protect, search, draw, audio record, photograph, type, and categorize all make this a powerful tool for consultants, itinerants, and so forth."
My PlayHome is a virtual doll house complete with family members from different cultures. Each room has a multitude of interactive items. For example in the kitchen students can open the refrigerator, choose the orange juice, pour juice into a glass, give it to a person to drink, take the empty glass to the sink, and wash it out. The house has a kitchen, living room, bathroom, two bedrooms and backyard to play in.
"This app is great for having children follow spoken directions that contain details that relate to home, family and location concepts/vocabulary: "have the sister pick up something green from the table", "put the mommy next to the green chair"," put the book on the chair", etc. You can give simple one detail directions or expand the directions to multi-step.
For children learning to process spoken language (hearing impaired children), auditory processing of language can be difficult and having them practice with variations in details is very important."
LAMP Words for Life is a robust augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) app that incorporates the research based Unity (84) language system developed by the Prentke Romich company (www.prentrom.com) with the Language Acquisition through Motor Planning (LAMP TM) principles (www.aacandautism.com) and strategies. The app is designed to promote consistent motor patterns for the production of words and the building blocks for communicating generatively with spontaneous novel utterances. The Lamp Words for Life AAC app can be considered for teaching beginning communicators who are just learning how to use language to control their environment on up to a robust dynamic augmentative communication tool for skilled communicators who are creating novel messages. The app has three progressively developing levels that can be selected for use. Each level utilizes the Ivona text to speech voices. For beginning communicators the powerful vocabulary builder masking feature which allows target words to be visible while others are hidden. This feature allows for consistently maintaining the same location of the words. Learning and maintaining a consistent motor pattern along with hearing the word and getting a reaction to the communication are all fundamental principles of the LAMP strategy.
Communication partners have also appreciated the word finder function which easily provides a visual map as to where the words are located, reducing frustration when trying to locate new words. New words can be customized and added as well.
“I have used the Lamp Words for Life with several students based on it’s features promoting generative communication and consistent motor planning. These students were outgrowing their PECS systems and the teams wanted trial systems that would allow them to begin combining more words. The students demonstrated progress with LAMP Words for Life and maintenance of motor patterns over time.. They also have shown the ability to navigate between pages and mastering the operational features of the app such as clear, go back etc. The masking feature has been used when introducing new words, but the students also had access to the full vocabulary at times for exploration and they have demonstrated the ability to retain the motor patterns for the new words and phrases that they are generating.”
