iPads and Communication: Making a Good Choice_Part 2

This is Part 2 of the "iPads and Communication Apps: Making a Good Choice" webinar archive.

It's simply a way that if you start to type a word the technology predicts what you want to

say and gives you either the choice of selecting from

a list of words or put the words up for you

This can be very effective, this can also be very annoying.

On one of my emails for example is "J.B. Vincent"

and when I try typing that into my smartphone

it always tries to substitute something like "unsuitable".

So its a technology that in the mobile

world still has quite a ways to go.

But in terms of speeding up typing, if people

prefer to type as opposed to selecting words

it can be a very, very useful and powerful technology.

So you do need to have a sense of whether word

prediction will assist that individual or not.

Next slide please.

So an additional consideration for people with dognitive disabilities:

.Will the person best understand words, graphics, or a combination?

If for example somebody is already using the

Bliss Symbol System, then transferring Bliss Symbols

to their augmentative communications strategy

will simply be a natural.

What else will help comprehension: it may

be useful to not simply use any graphics

downloaded off the internet but to use graphics

that specifically portray family members

or something else that is meaningful to the

individual wishing to communicate.

How many options should be presented at a time?

Some people are going to get confused if your

showing them too many options of things to communicate.

So they may benefit from simply having four options

at a time. Or they may benefit ... even benefit from

simply having a yes/no setup. So that

they can answer simple questions. That may

be most relevant to what they need to communicate.

And how should the options be organized?

How should they be set up so that individuals

will easily know where to find what they want

and be able to retrieve it whenever they want?

And again that somewhat ties into how many

options should be presented at a time.

You don't want to confuse people with too much,

but you don't want them to have to dig too deep

to find what they want.

So it's a question sometimes of finding a balance there.

Next slide please.

So what has really created a revolution

in augmentative communication is the availability

of the IPad. The device is a huge price

breakthrough for the level of sophistication provided.

Traditional dedicated devices have cost in the

thousands of dollars for the level of

sophistication that you can get on the IPad.

The IPad is about five hundred dollars and

some of the very best programs as we'll see

are totally free. So all you're paying for is

the cost of the IPad itself and perhaps a case

and some peripherals like that.

But there is so much good free software out there

these days that it brings the price way down.

The problem with that is the insurance companies

which are saying, " Well, heaven forbid that someone

might use the IPad for something other than

communication, therefore we're not going to fund it

since it's not a dedicated device. We would rather

pay $5000 for a dedicated device,

than $500 for a device that can

potentially do other things such as letting

people play solitaire or surf the web.

And that is something that is just going to have

to change. Because, you can't go on forever paying

ten times...paying out ten times the amount for the

device and thereby serving far far fewer people.

The other great thing about the IPad is that

it's easily...not only easily portable but its normalized.

It looks like what everybody else is using.

You don't have a device that's exotic,

that's un-cool looking in some cases.

You have something that looks like pretty much

what everyone else is carrying around.

So the individual is probably going to feel more

comfortable using it. 'Cause they are not going

to stick out as much.

The IPad is relatively easy and intuitive to use.

I've seen people, pretty much, including myself,

pretty much take to it right away.

And understand about moving your finger to

swipe back and forth. Pressing on something

to open it. It's pretty straight forward. There

isn't a huge learning curve with it.

And it's also very easy to develop and distribute apps,

such as the apps for augmentative communication.

And then a lot of these apps can be customized

by the end user. So you're not stuck with

what comes to you downloaded onto your IPad.

It's pretty easy to in most cases, to customize

to your particular needs.

Next slide please.

So a lot of these apps will run on just the IPad, just

the IPhone, just the IPod Touch.

Some of them will run on all three.

Some will run on only two out of those three.

When making a decision between the three

different hardware platforms, you want to look

first at the apps. Make sure that the app that

the individual wants to use is supported by

the hardware that you are selecting.

You want to look at the users ability to use

a larger or smaller device. We have, (at CforAT) as part of our

IPad Loan Program, 10 IPads, and 5 iPod Touchs.

The IPad's are just flying

out the door. The IPod Touch's have been a

much harder sell. Simply because people

have difficulty seeing the screen or people have

difficulty accurately selecting the target on

the smaller screen. The IPads in our experience

have been much more popular. If we had

a different population that might not necessarily be as true.

As I mentioned earlier, if someone needs to use

augmentative communication over the phone, then

obviously the IPhone is going to be a

consideration. Because that's the one out of the

three devices really built for making phone calls.

Portability, the IPad itself is quite portable but

somebody might need something more portable.

and the IPhone and the ITouch can be slipped

into a pocket. Another consideration there is:

Does it need to be mounted to a wheelchair?

and in those cases you may be better off with the IPad,

because thats going to be a little easier

to mount in a good position in many cases.

And security.

The obvious problem with the IPhone and ITouch is

they can slip out of the users pocket and into

somebody elses. Or if the person is going to be

more likely to not lose an IPad simply because it's

larger, that may be a consideration as well.

So all of these may be considerations when you're

looking at specific hardware platforms for an individual.

Next slide please.

Free vs. Paid Apps.

And this is always a consideration.

You get what you pay for and sometimes that's

just fine and sometimes it's not.

The model for a lot of apps is that they have a basic

free version, that you can download and use.

Usually in my experience there hasn't been a time

limit on those as there is with assistive technology on

on the computer platform, but there is very

often a series of better voices or more advanced options.

In some cases you will get a certain number of

communication options but if you want to author

your own you have to pay for it and so forth.

So that's the purchase model for some apps.

And some apps simply come in the free version

and that is the primary option.

Many free apps are surprisingly powerful.

So it's certainly worth downloading and trying

some free apps first to see what does and doesn't work.

And if you can't find a free app that meets the needs

of an individual then you can look around at

some of the ones. I have yet to find an augmentative communication app

that's more then about a hundred and ninety dollars.

They're still relatively inexpensive and more of them

are in the $20 to $50 dollar range.

So we are still not talking about a huge amount of money.

Next slide please.

[Karen] Jane do you see the question I forwarded to you?

[Jane] I did not see the question.

Has there been much success in finding a

stylus for augmenting the finger for pointing?

There has, and the good news is it's basically

a do it yourself.

And one thing (Karen, I will put a note to myself)

and Karen will send this out in the followup email

There is a way to basically take any sort of

stick or any sort of existing stylus and wrap it

using I believe copper wire and aluminum foil

and be able to use that as a stylus on the

IPad. And we have seen good results with that.

So what I will do is put a note to myself

to get the URL for constructing those to

Karen and then she will distribute that as part

of the packet after the presentation.

Good question. Thank You.

And what I'm going to do before we get into the

scenario's is I am going to pause for a moment

to see if there are other questions and rest my

voice for just a second and see if anybody else

has any other questions.

Just a reminder you can type your question into

the question pane or raise your hand if you want

to ask it out loud.

[Karen] I have a question for Jane while we are

waiting to see if there are any audience questions.

Are there websites that review the free apps?

[Jane] There are starting to be. I actually ran

across one that I wasn't thrilled with

but the best feedback that I've found, is if you go to

ITunes, people put in, just like Amazon.com,

People put in their reviews of the various apps.

And I've found those to be very,very useful and

generally pretty much on track.

When considering an IPad for autistic individuals

how durable is the touchscreen and are there

any devices that help with the durability of the screens?

Excellent question. They're relatively hardy but

but if someone is into throwing the devices

they are probably not going to withstand that.

On the other hand if you simply have somebody who

is tapping hard on it that's probably not going

to be a problem. One of the fastest growing

audiences for IPads apparently is cats.

And so Friskies has released three apps

for cats on the IPad, believe it or not.

And the reports are that the cats are pawing

them, the cats are scratching, and the screens

are surviving just fine. So they are relatively

hardy but they are not going to take being

broken or thrown.