A lot of the augmentative alternative communication apps available
for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch are really flexible
My son who's 8 and has autism is verbal
so he doesn't necessarily need an alternative an alternative communication app to help him speak
but pulling words from him can be like pulling teeth.
He can't answer simple questions like, "who did you see at school today?"
To demonstrate the flexibility of one of the apps
- the app that you are about to see is called My Talk Mobile.
What we've done is we took his class photo here
scanned in each of the individual photos into the application so that when I ask him
who he saw today you can actually touch one of the children or one of the teachers
and can show me. So it kind of reinforces that.
Let's see it in action.
[son] You touch it right here.
[Device] Jedidiah
[Son] Jedidiah. He says "Jedidiah".
[Dad] You saw him today?
[Device] Grace. [Son] Grace.
[Dad] Did you see Grace?
[Son] Yeah. [Dad] Good.
Who else did you see today?
[Device] Bryan. [Son] Bryan.
[Dad] You saw Bryan today at school?
[Device] Lelani. [Son] Lelani.
[giggles]
[Dad] What about....
[Son] Grace. [Dad] Was she at school today?
[Son] Yes. [Dad] Oh, nice.
[Son] Austin. [Dad] You saw Austin at school today?
You did? Are you sure it was Austin?
[Son] Yeah. [Device] Mr. Rap.
[Son] Mr. Rap. [Dad] He was there?
[Son] Yes. [Dad] Nice.
What about Isabel? Was she there?
[Device] Isabel. [Son] Isabel.
[Son] Isabel. [Dad] You saw Isabel at school?
Show me who else you saw.
[Device] Patrick. [Son] Patrick.
[Dad] You saw Patrick today?
[Son] Yup. [Dad] Good.
[Device] Issiah. [Son] Issiah.
[Device] Jesse. [Son] Saw Jesse.
[Dad] Good. What about Ms. Teresa. Did you see her today? She's the Principal.