Typ-O HD TTS Word Prediction App

I am trying out a new iPad App called Typ-o HD It is a word prediction App for those with dyslexia As a dyslexic I have found spelling on the iDevices to be the most frustrating thing I can think of. The automatic word replacement nearly always does not use the word I meant. It is crazy making to have a text you worked hard on read like a Mad Lib. Additionally I often times touch a misspelled word only to have the pop up show that there is no word that is close enough to what I spelled for it to make suggestions.

The best spelling correction program I have ever used is that which is built into the web browser Firefox. It works for me because it underlines misspelled words and then gives me a list of possible words when I right click on the underlined word; infrequently I have spelled something so incorrectly that this method doesn't work for me, but then I can usually get pretty close to what I meant with a few attempts at sounding out the word (phonetic encoding). I have used word prediction programs in the past, usually Write:Outloud by Don Johnston, but I often times do not find word prediction to be that useful. Luckily I can usually pick the word I want from a list of potential words. So I am capable of using word prediction. Typeo is nice because you can click the "play" icon next to any word and hear it said to be able to find out if it is the word you meant Thus far typeo seems to be working OK for me except it is hard to get used to looking at the word prediction for words I might misspell.





I do like the spell check on Typ-o HD though. So far it is able to find the word I want for even my worst misspellings. It makes me happy for the dyslexic kids who are out there right now that perhaps they will not suffer some of the embarrassments I did when, for example, my seventh grade English teacher made our spelling lists for the week based on mistakes we made in our writing. My list was horribly long and humiliating when she paired us up to help each other study. Not to mention that I loved learning vocabulary words like obsequious or loquacious but never used them in my writing because I knew I could not spell them even well enough to look them up in the dictionary (remember those?). Typ-o HD also allows you to use text to speech to hear any selection of your text or your entire text read to you. Also you can export to e-mail or to the clipboard to paste into another program (in this case into BlogPress to post this entry).



I know that, for me Typ-O HD is the best app I have found for typing on the iPad. I have moved it to my dock and don't intend to compose text without it now that I have it.

My wishes for Typ-o HD would be better voices for the text to speech and a grammar check feature. Also what is up with the letter "I" not automatically being capitalized? I wouldn't mind automatic apostrophes in contraction either. Or at least a way to turn such features on and off.

If Typ-o HD were to upgrade to better voices the app would be an excellent AAC app. I can see individuals using it to communicate very easily by typing, with word prediction help, what they wish to say and then pressing speak. I would gladly pay five to ten times the cost of Typ-o HD for a version with the best of the best text to speech voices. Perhaps called Typ-o AAC?

Typ-o HD is for iPad and is $1.99. Typ-o is for iPhone or iTouch and is $.99.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Learning the iPad

This afternoon I had a chance to spend some time with my good friend and former student, Colleen. Colleen is now 22 and I have know her since she was my student from 2001-2006 and we have been good friends ever since. Colleen is a wonderful young lady with a great sense of humor who likes working hard. She is a power chair user and communicates through alternative methods of communication.

I brought along my iPad to our visit and she tried it out. First we spent sometime with Colleen learning to slide her finger across the screen. We used Cat in a Rainbow and Picture Pusher for this.












Cat in a Rainbow is essentially a cause and effect program which rewards sliding a flower across a stripe of rainbow with a pop-up photograph and sound effect. It is a good learning how to target and slide/scroll app and a fun cause and effect app for those who can manage the fine motor skills. Colleen thought Cat in a Rainbow was ok, but she loved Picture Pusher.








In Picture Pusher a number of photos or images appear on the screen and user slides them into a box. The app is very customizable. Colleen loved sliding pictures of herself, her friends and family into the box and quickly came to understand dragging and dropping on the iPad. Next we moved onto ACT Spelling which is a program that shows one to five large, high contrast buttons on the screen and asks the user to find letters, spell CVC words or spell words from the first three Dolch lists. This app is also very customizable, especially for vision issues. Colleen loved this app, although it took her a minute to move from sliding to tapping (at first she wanted to slide the letters to the top of the screen, but she soon understood to tap the letters.







After she did all three Dolch lists twice I convinced her to try out Proloquo2Go. Colleen has a love/hate relationship with communication devices. She has all the skills she needs to access a device (she understands thousands of picture symbols, reads on a late grade two level and spells on a grade one level; she can access a touch screen and although she is legally blind a small to medium size screen in the right field of vision is something she sees perfectly) yet she has severe problems with making communicative selections. She will hover her finger over the button she wishes to choose, waiting for a cue to activate it. (Yes, it is a cue dependency/desire to please/learned helplessness issues - I have known her for nine years and still we haven't successfully broken through with this. We have seen some success using a mouse set to dwell in breaking through but that leads to all sorts of issues with finding a device that has dwell for mouse or joystick and not just for eye or head tracking. Someday someone will invent the right device for my friend; I hope.) Thus I started small when showed her Proloquo2Go, just having her spell words on the Keyboard Page like she had been doing in the ACT Spelling App. Eventually we will try out communicating with Proloquo2Go, but we are going to move slowly.






Overall I was impressed with the simplicity and how much Colleen liked the apps we tried out in practicing iPad skills, especially Picture Pusher and ACT Spelling. Cat in a Rainbow and Picture Pusher are both excellent apps for teaching the fine motor mechanics of using the iPad. ACT Spelling is nice app to teacher spelling to students who know how to tap the screen or targeting/tapping to a student who has some letter and/or spelling knowledge.

(I will add links to the apps mentioned tomorrow, as well as add them to the iPossibilities Round-Up blog entry. It is just to hard to do that kind of editing on the iPad.)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

StoryKit Possibilities

StoryKit is a free iPhone/iTouch/iPad app from the International Children's Digital Library.  It allows the user to create story books using multimedia including images and audio clips.  Integrated into the program is a paint program and ability to share books you make.

You can use this app to create scrapbooks of recent classroom events, social stories and visual schedules.  Essentially you are limited only by your creativity.

If you download the free ARASAAC or Scelera Picture Symbol (or the Mayer-Johnson PCS Metafiles or similar) set onto your iDevice you can intergrate picture symbols into your "book".  Otherwise you can use photographs you take with the camera (on an iPhone or iPad) or import through iTunes.

StoryKit has the possibility to replace some of the more expensive prompting (a  visual schedule could be created with one picture per "page" and audio of what happens next and a child taught to turn the page when done with each step or his helper could do that for him) or storyboard programs, so long as you aren't looking to have an alarm or timer. 

StoryKit also has access to the books in the International Children's Digital Library to read and share together.

iPossibilities for Those with Significant Special Needs and their Teams

Updated June 19, 2010

Key:
The YGWYPF notation means "You get what you pay for!"
T&T is Tried and True and means the blog author uses this application and finds it useful
BIC is Best in Category, based only on the authors impression, no other criteria are in play
* means that the app has been used by the author


AAC

• Answers: Yes No - is an app that simply says yes or no, press the green yes to say yes or the red no to say no, you can have a male or female (or cartoon) voice, simple and works great in a pinch ($.99) T&T*
• AutoVerbal Talking Soundboard - an AAC app which uses clip art like icons and low quality voices when off of wifi and high quality voices when on wifi, has a limited number of programmable buttons, many have noted it is currently buggy, compelling horizontal scrolling looks interesting ($.99 with rumors to be going up to $29.99) YGWYPF
• Expressionist - is a app by Adastrasoft it holds 120 common expressions in 7 catagories and 1000+ nouns using photographs as identifiers in addition to a black and white line drawing of a cartoon-like person to create "composite images", the system design is a little baffling to me just looking at the screenshots and videos
• EZ Speech by Gus Communications is a text-to-speech system with NeoSpeech voices and a system of folders to organize and speed things up.  No pictures symbols. ($795!!!!)
• Grace - A PECS style app for all the iDevices that uses simple color drawings in a PECS like set up.  ($37.99)
• iComm - a newer photo based AAC app with recorded voice and yes/no confirmation of choices, iPhone and iPad only (free for introduction period and price will scale upwards to $27.00, some reports of being "nagware"*
• iConverse - this is a "you get what you pay for" augmentative and alternative communication solution, offering six choices with a decent voice and clip art icons and a horrendous text-to-speech voice for user created buttons ($10) YGWYPF*
• Look2Learn AAC - yet another "you get what you pay for" app, this one is photo based (comes with 80) and allows you to change sizes of the images, basically this allows the user to communicate "I want" messages only (only 4 buttons with vocal output). ($25) YGWYPF*
• My Talk Tools - Voice output AAC using photos and emoticons, not research based, nor designed for intuitive communication or motor planning based use ($35.99) YGWYPF*
• Small Talk - by Lingraphica is a photobased communication program designed for adults who have had strokes (free - subscribe for more)*
• Speak It! - text to speech program with choice of voices ($1.99)*
  
• Proloquo2Go - a complete augmentative and alternative communication solution using current research in the field, SymbolStix communication symbols and a high quality voice and many highly customizable features ($189.99) T&T, BIC see TLWMSN review  Proloquo2Go - AssistiveWare 
• Talk - by AlterMa Inc is a text-to-speech application ($0.99) YGWYPF*
• Talk Assist - a free program that allows keeping selections of text-to-speech to click on and play or typing and playing messages with TTS, voice is very low quality (free) *
• TapToTalk - AAC seet up in "albums" of "emoticon" style clip art, the starter album is free and may be enough for beginning communicators, more advanced albums and original program requires a subscription (free starter, $99 a year subscription) *
• Tap Speak Button - essentially a Big Mac Button (or single message voice output switch) where you record a message and touch the screen to play it back, you can store multiple messages and use when needed ($9.99) T&T*
• iAssist Communicator - a photograph based AAC app with 4 photos and related speech output per page over multiple pages, customizable ($29.99)
  
• iBlissSymbols - not many people still use Bliss symbols with individuals with severe or multiple disabilities, but if you happen to work with someone who was talk Bliss Symbols this app is for them, a Bliss Symbols based communication app!  (Lite is free, Full is $18.99)*
• iCoon - a global icon dictionary using very simple line drawings and digital pics, meant for travelers, may have other implications in our field
• iInteract - an odd communication board set as it has no regard for the heirarchy of symbolic representation, the main board is text based and subsequent boards mix clip art and photographs; there are a total of six boards at this time and a choice of a boy or girl voice ($8.99) YGWYPF*
• iMean - is a letter board based AAC system with word prediction for literate AAC communicators, currently no voice output ($4.99) YGWYPF*
• Locabulary - is a primarily text based (some small digital pics), list based, sentence chaining, AAC or vocab teaching or prompting system that uses GPS to determine vocabulary on the page (i.e. puts you to the coffee page in Starbucks) currently the lite version is up for beta testing; hopefully they are putting together a really great expansion of Locabulary because the beta is very promising T&T*
• iTake Turns - simple app allows user to say, "my turn" and "your turn" in a male or female voice ($1.99)
  
• SynthSpeech - allows you to use an adjustable voice to create text-to-speech selections, which can be stored on a soundboard for AAC use ($1.99)
• Yes/No Bilingual - allows the communicator to say yes or no in English or Spanish and in a male of female voice ($1.99)
  

Data Collection

• ABC Data Pro -  complex data collection software for those that need it (27.99)
• Behavior Tracker Pro - allows the users to log ABC, frequency or duration data and then see it graphed, supports multiple data collections at once ($9.99) T&T*
• eCove Observation Software - five types of counters and timers to allow you to take different types of data (free)*
• iBehavior - allows tracking of positive/negative behavior of multiple subjects, designed for teachers to track classroom behavior in general education (free)*
• Percentally - data collection by tally or +/- which is automatically converted to percentages, allows for tracking multiple goals and objectives for multiple students at the same time ($4.99). T&T, BIC*
• Tallymander - list based tally management, keep tally of multiple things (behaviors, data) at once and e-mail it

Prompting/Visual Schedules

• First/Then Visual Schedule - simple picture schedule allows three formats of viewing, however a limited choice of pictures and currently no means of importing images ($9.99)*
• Halo Talk - by AdstraSoft this forced choice/prompting app is designed as pairs of opposites to use to offer choices from a field of two photos or to prompt to using a field of two photos, like the other AdstraSoft applications this uses the cartoon drawing of a person as well as photos ($33)
  
• iPrompts - this is an ap allowing you to use photograph or clip art symbols to make visual schedules, pair with a count down time or make basic choices from a field of two (without speech output) ($50) (if you tried this a year ago, the updates make it more user friendly - still not worth $50, but more user friendly and no bugs)*
• Picture Scheduler - this app shows a visual reminder (photo or video) at a specified time as well as playing a voice note to cue the user ($3)*
  
• Step Stones - by AdastraSoft is a new app for visual schedules using photos the current version has 12 visual sequences, the new version to be released will add 15 more and allow user made sequences, the user can check off each step as it is done ($29) 
• Visules - sets of individual or lists of picture cues to use separately or as routines. ($4.99) YGWYPF*

Reward Charts

• iReward - is essentially a "star chart" or behavior contract system for your iPod/iPhone ($2.99)*
• Reward Chart - simple, early childhood type sticker charts for tracking multiple rewards over time for children (free)*

Sign Language

• Signing Time - the famous DVDs now have an app! Learn sign on your iPhone or iTouch
• Sign4Me - SEE Sign Language Tutor using animated avatar ($9.99) *

Timers

• Time Timer - the original Time Timer as an app, visual showing of time remaining, 10 sounds you can play when time is elapsed (we like the clapping for differential reinforcement of zero behaviors) ($4.99) T&T, BIC*
• Time Jot - allows you to time things and keep multiple logs of those times, good as both a timer and for data collection*
• Visual Count Down Timer - a stack of blocks that lowers as time counts down ($2.99)

Other

• 3D Brain - a 3D image of a brain with various view, labels and information about brain and brain disorders; very useful if you teach those with brain injury, seizures and various brain based issues like agenesis of the corpus callosum or microcephaly (free) T&T*
• A_T_Chooser - it is hard to say something isn't worth $.99 but this isn't, basically it is supposed to give you an overview of AT options for various types of disabilities, if you know how to use Google or have ever been in a special needs classroom you don't need this app, let's just say if someone can't be bothered to remove the underscores from the app title don't but it! ($.99) YGWYPF*
• ArtikPix - using SymbolStix Communication Symbols for flashcards and matching games this app gives teachers and speech therapists probes for working on articulation
• A Special Phone - this is an app that allows dialing without looking at the key pad and a shake of the phone instead of pressing dial, additionally you can program six dial by photo numbers that allow dialing without knowing or mathcing numbers ($0.99)
• Flick Tunes - allows a playlist to be controlled by sliding a finger or fingers across the screen, designed for drivers and others to control music without looking this app is wonderful for those with fine motor issues (be careful, your students will learn how to crank up the volume FAST!) T&T, BIC ($.99)* b
• Flux Tunes - very similar to Flick Tunes ($.99)
• IEP Checklist - this app lists all of the sections of the IEP as required by federal law and allows you to create a checklist of those sections by student to be sure you have completed everything you need to complete before, during and after the meeting (free)*
• Talkulator - a talking calculator, basic in design ($.99) *

iPod/iPhone/iPad App Round Up for Severe or Multiple Disabilities Update

list updated here!

iPad for Our Rooms

I would be remiss if I did not mention the potential the newly announced iPad from Apple may have on severe special education, especially for AAC.However there is no way I can do justice to the topic like Ricky did over at ATMac.  Thus, I send you there to read all about it!

(I just want to see Proloquo2Go run on it.  And hear how loud the speakers are.)

iPod Update

Last week I shared my excitement at the new Time Timer app for iPod Touch and iPhone.