Communication

Augmentative and Alternative Communication Devices (AAC)

The main focus of tonight's class was to have students really think about communication and ways in which we communicate - something most of us find fairly easy and take for granted.  We then discussed ways in which a person, who had difficulty communicating through verbal or written means, could communicate to others with the aid of Augmentative and Alternative Communication devices (ACC).

1.)                 Communication is . . . a way to express your needs, emotions, wants and desires.

2.)                20 Different Ways to communicate:

-      Body language

-      Voice

-      Sign language

-      Facial expressions

-      Not speaking to a person

-      Listening

-      Actions

-      Pictures

-      Text

-      Email

-      Drawing

-      Telephone

-      Letters

-      Dancing

-      Shaking head (yes, no)

-      Eyes

-      Stories (reading books)

-      Social stories

-      iPad

-      Hitting/tapping

-      Songs

-      Mimicking

-      gestures

3.)                 Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)- is a way to communicate other than through verbal or written methods.    (It can augment or enhance oral communication). 

4.)                 There are no typical users of AAC but oftentimes people with speech and language impairments such as cerebral palsy, intellectual impairment , autism, stroke patients, ALS, and Parkinson's disease.

5.)                Three criteria of Effective Communication:

-      Communication Partner (Attentive person)

-      Joint Attention (Active Listening)

-      Common Language

ACC Devices

Low Tech for ACC

Homemade Card Holder

The Ring

The Switch

Wrist Band Communicator

Social Stories

Communication Books

for story writing

Communication Chart

Communication Chart

These are for individual use.  Items are arranged on a single board or sheet. Some individuals have a number of charts with vocabulary suited to specific activities. Example:  they would take their ten pin bowling vocabulary chart to the bowling rink, their health chart to the doctor’s, their haircut chart to the hairdressers and their picture of a Big Mac to McDonald’s.

Adapted Paper

Pencil Grips

Slant Boards

Medium Tech for ACC

Portable Deluxe Picture Communication Unit (Hardware)

TextSpeak Large Key Wireless Speech Generator Keyboard (Hardware)

Dragon Natural Speaking (Software)

Dragon Dictation (app)

JAWS for Windows (software)

Choiceworks (app)

Predictable (app)

ReadIris (app)

Claro (app)

Galaxy Tablet (Android device) - iPad

High Tech ACC

An Inspirational Video:

Meet Tiago - a young child with CP 

 

Extras:

To Take a Snapshot of your screen: Command-shift-3

Speech to Text on a MacBook Pro: Press "Edit" then "Start Dictation"

Text to Speech on a MacBook Pro: Press "Option" and "Escape" together.

Universal Design for Learning

ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY COURSE

Technology in Education: A Future Classroom

I came across this video while researching information for this assistive technology course.  IT'S WORTH THE VIEW!

DAY 1

As I sit in front of my computer and reflect on my “A-ha” moments from my first assistive technology class, I have to say that there are many!  Let me first talk about a new term that I learned that is an important one - Universe Design for Learning (UDL).   Basically, UDL is a framework that provides educators with a structure to develop their instruction to meet the wide range of diversity among all learners.  UDL suggests that a one-size-fits-all approach to curricula is not effective and, thus is a great framework to use for enhancing the performance of individuals with a disability.  In a nut shell, UDL allows for multiple ways for students to acquire and represent their knowledge.

 As educators, we can use assistive technology as a means of enhancing the performance of individuals with a disability.  Most educators know this however, the difficulty lies within the fact that many educators, myself included, aren’t properly trained in using assistive technology.

For this blog, I wanted to compile a list of assistive technology apps that we discussed in my Assistive Technology course so that they may be readily accessible to me and perhaps other educators.

APPS FOR iPAD:

Strip Design 

With Strip Designer students can create their own personal comic strip right on the iPhone or iPad. Photos can be added from photo albums or they can draw their own sketches.  Speech balloons and stickers can be added to get that genuine comic book feel.

ComicLife

                                      This is another app that can be used to create a cartoon strip.

BookCreator

With this app, students can create their own iBooks, right on the iPad.

ToonCamera 

 
Toon Camera can turn videos and photos into live cartoons.

Cloud Art 

                                                                        This is a fun way to create poetry and                                                                                 it's easy to use.  Students simply

                                                              type in words for their poetry topic

and with a click of a button their poem is turned into a visual poem.

                                               

Tellagami  

Tellagami is a fun way to tell a story.  Students can record their voice or type in a message for their character (which they create) and it will be read out loud.

ReadIris

Read Iris to Text to Speech inSeconds with your iPad (A “How To” YouTube from Assistive Technology Specialist, Barb Welsford) 

Scan or take a picture of a text and edit it to make it more user-friendly for the learner.  With this app, the text can be enlarged, reduced, read aloud and words can be highlighted and clicked on to bring up an image (a visual dictionary) of the word.

Claro 

ClaroSpeak is a text-to-speech reader capable of speaking any accessible text with a range of human-sounding high-quality voices.

 Color Splash  

                  




With the Color Splash™ app students can give photos a dramatic look      by converting them to black and white, while keeping chosen details in colour.

 APPS ALREADY ON THE iPAD:

Speak Selection - This app, already included on the iPad, will read the text for the learner.  Click on the “Accessibility” option of iPad then hold down a finger on the word and highlight.  The text will be read aloud.

SPECIAL FEATURES ON THE INTERNET:

Wikipedia – To reduce the amount of visual information, go to left sidebar and in the “Language” and click on “Simple English” and the amount of text is reduced.