AAC Genie Evaluation: eliminating the guess work!

Hey Tel-Ninjas! I have been working with a remarkable app for the past year+, and I want to share it with you.  If you are new to AAC evaluations, or a veteran, this app may really help you understand and document your student's needs.

The AAC Evaluation Genie app is designed for your iPad, and IMHO is more expository than diagnostic. The app won't tell you which device to use/buy, but it will guide you in making an optimum setup for whatever intervention you go with.

The AAC Evaluation Genie sells for $11.99.

There are 14 subtests which can be administered with multiple settings to get to the information you need.

Visual Identification
This activity evaluates the user’s ability to visually track and identify a single icon from 5" to 1" in size.

Visual Discrimination
This activity evaluates the user’s ability to visually track and discriminate a single icon from 5" to 1" in size.

Noun Vocabulary
This activity evaluates the user’s ability to identify common noun vocabulary.

Function Vocabulary
This activity evaluates the user’s ability to identify common noun vocabulary by stated function.

Verb Vocabulary

This activity evaluates the user’s ability to identify common verb (action word) vocabulary.

Category Recognition
This activity evaluates the user’s ability to identify common noun vocabulary by category group inclusion.

Word Association
This activity evaluates the user’s ability to identify a noun by associated feature or function.

Category Inclusion
This activity evaluates the user’s ability to identify common noun vocabulary by category inclusion.

Category Exclusion
This activity evaluates the user’s ability to identify common noun vocabulary by category exclusion.

Data

Pixon Core Vocabulary
This activity evaluates the recognition and identification of common core vocabulary words not easily represented with pictures using Pixon® symbols.

Unity Core Vocabulary
This activity evaluates the identification of common core vocabulary words not easily represented with pictures using Minspeak Unity® symbols.

Unity Icon Patterns
This activity evaluates the identification of vocabulary organized by Minspeak Unity® semantic / linguistic patterns.

Picture Description
This activity evaluates the user’s ability to describe basic pictures using a simulated AAC display.

Word Prediction
This activity evaluates the user’s ability to read text and select a target word from a list of four choices.

Hajimé!

Symbols Software...again.

Hey Tek-Ninjas! A while back I wrote with great enthusiasm about a shared platform called Pogo Boards. Over the summer I was working to get our school district signed up, but alas I could not get a hold of the folks at the company. That should have been a red flag, but, admittedly my summers are my own, and I don't work much.

In August I finally got a phone call from one of the company owners who regretfully informed me that they were closing their doors due to a host of unfortunate issues. I was so glad that I'd not actually sent them money, as they may not have been in a position to refund!

So, I spent several days frantically looking for a viable replacement option.

I needed access to symbol software which works across platforms (Chrome, Windows, and Mac), it needed to be intuitive, robust, and affordable. Boardmaker nails the first two criteria, but for our district, the price was higher than my director would support.

Enter Symbol Stix Prime from the good folks at News2You.

SymbolStix PRIME is a web-based symbol search engine and materials creation platform.  It is designed and developed by n2y, SymbolStix PRIME includes depictions of people, events, and activities with personally relevant stick figures appropriate for all ages.

The shared platform allows users to create symbol-based language and learning materials for printing or speaking aloud online.  There are over 30,000 symbols in the library and 500 new symbols added each month!

I have been very pleased with Symbol Stix Prime. You can give it a test run with a free 30 day trial.  Individual pricing is $79 annually. With higher numbers, you can earn a discount. Users can log into their account on any computer platform from any location. If you are looking for symbol support, I recommend you take a close look at this offering from News 2 You!

Hajimè!

Image to text reader

Greetings Tek-Ninjas! Hope you are surviving the election well enough.

I wanted to share with you all a Google extension which I stumbled upon recently. The extension is called Project Naptha. Project Naptha is a screen reader, which works in your Chrome Browser, regardless of computer platform. It is unique for two reasons.
1. It's free.
2. It is designed to convert any text image into digital text with an OCR converter, thus allowing your native screen reader to read the text to you.

I've found it to be immensely useful, however, the quality of the image does have a direct impact on how well the image inverts to text.

Happy therapy!

Shameless Self Promotion

Hey Tek-Ninjas! I'm sharing my latest endeavor in the arts. It is a collection of some of my digital art. It can be viewed for free, here on my site, or by going straight to issuu. Thanks for looking. I'll be blogging again, soon!

Getting to know you...

Hey Tek-Ninjas! Yesterday, at the Carolina HealthTEC Live Conference in Asheville, I learned about a really terrific app. While exploring it, and chatting with a rep, I realized I know the app creator. Pretty cool!

The app is called Know Me. Per the app developers: 

"Know Me is an integrated set of tools to help you express who you are to the people in your life. The main feature is Profile, a way of visually displaying important information about you. Profile is supported by Gallery, a place for longer documents linked to your profile, as well as Team Talk, a place where conversations between you and your team are kept."

Here is what I can tell you. I downloaded the app for free onto my iPad. Then within a few minutes, I'd created my own profile using the very intuitive interface, incorporating pictures from my photo gallery, as well as one I took on the spot. Downloading the app onto my iPhone (still for free), and logging in, the app populated immediately with my profile. On the phone, the profile is not editable, which is good to prevent accidental change.

With this app, an individual with limited communication skills can met a new person, and easily share with them who they are. 

At the bottom of the app is an emergency tab where you can enter your caregiver's name and contact info.

The app is elegant, and incredibly intuitive. Take a look at it!

Hajime!

Saving Boardmaker PDF's to Google Drive

Hey Tek-Ninjas! This article is primarily written with my work colleagues in mind, as we are leaving one piece of software for another.

Many folks have a lot of work made in the first program. In order to be able to access it, you will need to save the files as PDF's. This will allow you to still use the boards, however, you won't be able to easily change them. If you have a lot of files that you want to save, plan on this taking awhile. You may want to do it in multiple steps.

But, here are the steps.

Open a Board file and then select "Print".











In the bottom left corner select PDF, and within that pull down menu choose "Save as PDF".



Before you actually click save, in the bottom corner click on "New Folder".











In the box that comes up, create a name.











Now, save your board in this new file. Subsequent boards will just be saved in this board. This process will make it easier to organize or even move to your Google Drive.











If you want to take the next step of moving your PDF's to your Google Drive follow these steps.

It is recommended that you download and proceed with the browser Chrome in order to upload a whole file.

Open your Google Drive and select "New".

Choose "Folder" and create a Boardmaker PDF folder.

Next, click on "New" and choose "File Upload". Now you can simply drag your previously made PDF folder into your browser. 

Depending on how many pages you have, this process may take some time. Good luck and don't hesitate to email with questions.

Hajime!

Abilipad: Customizable Notepad and Keyboard!

Hey Tek-Ninjas! Are you familiar with Abilipad? If not, take a look at it. I reviewed it awhile back, but only considering one small aspect of the app. More recently, I've had further opportunity to dig into this robust app, and frankly I'm astonished at just how great it is.

The word prediction function remains good. But what is truly significant is how easy it is to create
unique and custom keyboards with pictures, symbols, individual words, and even whole phrases in a "key". It reminds me in some ways for Cricksoft's Clicker, or Slaterware's Pixwriter, but at a fraction of the cost; $19.99.

Making a custom keyboard is remarkably simple. The control board is intuitive. Pictures can be added from the iPad or from Pixabay. Text can be added, which can then be read out loud by a quality computer voice when "typed" by the end user.

Built into the app are links to several tutorial videos as well as an online instructional book.

Sharing boards is easy using the built in email or DropBox access.

Keyboard Creation

Adding to the value, if you run into a problem, there is a direct email link to the app creator, Cheryl Bregman. She is remarkably fast in responding, and very helpful.

Abilipad is ideal for your emerging writers, or to set up with scanning and switch access as an alternative writing tool.

Features are as listed:

The adaptive notepad provides scaffolding and support:

•Distraction-free writing space

•Word Prediction (available in English, Spanish, French and German language settings)

•Set the text style (font, size and color) and background color 

•Include images from the image library or use your own pictures

•Add, duplicate and reorder pages 

•Link keyboards to effortlessly shift between from one to the next.

Text-to-speech:

•Words are highlighted as they are spoken

•Speaks letters, words and /or sentences

•AAC option with easily accessible clear text button

•Adjust the reading speed

Accessibility Features:

•Bluetooth enabled for use with a wireless keyboard 

•Insert text from emails, text documents or webpages to hear it read out loud 

•Languages include: Arabic, Czech, Danish, Dutch (Belgium, Netherlands), English (Australia, Ireland, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States), Finnish, French (Canada, France), German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish

For many of us, $20 feels like a relatively big chunk of change for an app, but really, for all it does, it is a remarkable bargain!

Hajime!