One of these things is not like the other, one of these things does not belong...

You know what drives me crazy? And what probably drives my students even more crazy? When device companies/device programmers mix symbol sets. Today one of my students needed to apologize to someone for something. Her communication partner was able to help her navigate to the page on her device where the "I'm sorry" message is, but the student would not activate it.

Why? Because it was the Dynasym for "sorry" (which she is not familiar with) not the Mayer-Johnson PCS for "sorry" (which she has used her entire life). I changed the symbol, she apologized and moved on, but the moment stayed with me all day.

The Gateway 5 board set for Dynavox and the InterAACt board set for Dynavox has pre-programmed boards that mix Dynasyms and PCS.

Why? Why would you do that to a kid who has spent a life time learning a certain set of symbols? Sure some kids/adults can generalize, but many others can't. So why set them up like that? Why would you create boards that were likely to make them fail?

Why not offer Gateway 5 and InterAACt with either all Dynasyms or all PCS and let the individual and his or her team choose which one to put on the device? Its not like there isn't a PCS for the words they use a Dynasym on vs. a PCS. One company owns both symbol sets, so it isn't copyright issues. I just don't get it. In the United States (and many, many other countries) the most universal symbol set is PCS by Mayer-Johnson, if its not broke, don't fix it.

How would you like it if suddenly one tenth to half of the words you went to read where in Greek or Korean?

Dynavox Continues to Respond (The Committed Folks That They Are)

From my inbox nine this morning (must have been the first thing done after putting down the coffee and turning on the computer):

"Dear Kate Ahern:

We are stopping the sale of the Series 4 products – MT4 and DV4 – in most areas on October 1, 2007. However, we will be fully supporting this product for a long time to come.

With all of our products – going back to the Dynavox, Dynavox 2C, Dynavox 3100, etc – we supply life-time technical support. We will always answer the phone for any device – forever. What we also strive to do is to be able to repair the devices for as long as possible. At a minimum, we shoot for being able to have the parts to repair a device for 5 years after the given device was actually sold. If we offer repairs for a longer time period, we do. Currently, we are holding the parts in our inventory to do this for the MT4 and DV4. Some of these parts are no longer available from the people who produced them. This is one of the factors leading us to discontinue this product line – to ensure that we have an adequate amount of parts to fully support those with existing products. Other factors are the drop off in volume in preference to the new V and Vmax; and the realization that many of those that are buying what MT4 and DV4 devices are still being sold are doing so without having known to also trial the V or Vmax.

Jason McCullough
Product Manager
DynaVox Technologies"

Good to know, since I have that Dynavox 2c under my bed!

AAC Device News

I had a training with our sales rep/trainer from Dynavox today and I had an e-mail from DJ at Great Talking Box about the Touchspeak hand held. So I have lots to share.

First the Dynavox, we were training on the DV4, but also had a chance to take another look at the Dynavox V. I learned a couple tricks I didn't know, for example there is an assessment feature on the DV4 series (and the V series) that allows teachers and therapists to assess and train the access, language and cognition parts of using the device.

Also, I learned about the usage counter which will keep data on how many times a student accesses a particular button (a feature Speaking Dynamically Pro also has). Perhaps the next upgrade of the Dynavox products will be a data collection tool that creates a log of what pages were accessed, which buttons were pressed, dates and times of those items, averages of pages accessed and buttons pressed by time of day, etc. (Basically I want the Dynavox to keep data the way my Animas insulin pump keeps data. On my pump I can look at or download logs of insulin use and blood glucose by times of day, averages based on various criteria and any notes I entered into the system. Something along those lines would be great on the Dynavox.)

During the Dynavox training Lori (our rep) gave me a copy of some of the new Dynavox advertisement material. At first I couldn't figure out why she was giving it to me, then I realized that I am quoted (via this blog) on the flyer. Very cool. My colleagues think I should get kick-backs.

We also heard today about the new Dynavox Palm Top (photo above) due out in June. All I have to say about this is "Hallelujah!", the ChatPC 3 is a total pain in the rear end (on the software end, not the hardware end) and the ChatPC 2 is no longer being sold (it was pretty decent on the software side, but not the hardware side). If Dynavox has taken their skill and talent for creating innovative, consumer focused AAC software and applied it to the same hardware as the Chat PC 3 it should be an excellent device. I can't wait to see it in action. Now we have another reason to count down until June, besides summer vacation.

As I mentioned I also heard news about the TouchSpeak today. I had e-mailed DJ on behalf of a speech therapist friend looking for some ideas for a client. DJ let me know that the device will run on the HTC Dopod phone, which has a five inch screen and 5 1/8" wide by 3 3/4" high by 5/8" thick for dimensions. He will send me the weigh, the price, and the rental price tomorrow. It should be ready for rentals in June.

Dynavox V

Today I (finally) had the opportunity to see the Dynavox V in action and it was worth the wait! What a unique AAC device Dynavox has made this time. (If only there was a decent image I could hijack for my blog, this one doesn't do it justice.)

I don't even know where to start. The paraprofessionals in my classroom seemed to spend the day deciding what color they would choose if they were getting one (choices: lime green, raspberry, blue berry, grey, black). Some of the student spent quite a bit of time messing around with the choice of voices (in addition to the Microsoft and DecTalk voices now there are AT&T voices). The speech therapists were happy with the new developmentally and age appropriate language software (InterACCT - very, very cool).

I was thrilled that some of my tiny, whiny Dynavox 4 series complaints are solved (the keyguard is flush with the screen so no more caught fingers, it runs Windows XP and has direct internet access). I also loved the ease of adding photographs, MP3 and videos. You can even get images, sounds and videos straight from the internet to InterACCT!

InterACCT uses some of the same intuitive programming features as the Gateway series did, but is has pre-made, ready-to-go boards for every age level no matter what ability. No more jerry-rigging the pre-school board set for older users who need simpler boards and no more trying to make the more complex boards fun for users who are younger and very high functioning.

As always the Dynavox can be used with direct select, various types of scanning, a few different head mice, joysticks and Morse code. Unlike the series four no matter what input device you can adjust things like dwell or scan rate to suit the user. Back from the series 3 devices is the "user" feature, allowing schools and clinics to have more than one student use the same device or one individual with a fluctuating condition to have several board sets to meet different needs.

Another new feature is the Boardmaker Bridge with allows easy import of Speaking Dynamically Pro boards into the Dynavox, so you aren't stuck with a SDP device forever if you don't want to re-program all those boards. Also new is the fact that you no longer have to choose between Mayer-Johnson PCS or Dynasyms, now you automatically get both!

Another feature that was awesome was the symbol clipboard which allows you to select any text (like online, in an e-mail or in a word document) and it creates a page of symbols from the vocabulary! Similarly there is a piece of add on software called DynaLessons that makes teaching standards based curriculum with the Dynavox easier. Thank you Dynavox for not forgetting the teachers and our need for curriculum content!

With the device the user gets a Dynavox e-mail address and a pre-installed e-mail program! The Dynavox e-mail program is adjustable from just a few buttons to create an error free e-mail to a keyboard to compose anything you want to say. Also, the Dynavox V has Bluetooth and can send text and receive text messages to/from cellphones.

The Dynavox V has the same x10 and IR environmental controls as the series four, but it also has GEWA. The IR is very easy to program and I am promised the x10 is as well. (I plan to spend most of next week programming x10 on the series for in the room, so I will let you know how that goes.)


The best news the company representative had for us (Hi, Lori) was that in our state a new device can be purchased through state insurance in three years if there is a clinically sound reason for it, such as the student has outgrown the capabilities of the old device (which one of my students has and the device is about 34 months old). So maybe there will be a Dynavox V in my room sometime soon.

See video of AT on ABC news including Dynavox V.

Some Lesser Known Dynamic Display Devices

FRS is offering us the ComLink, weighing in at under four pounds, running Windows XP, containing 10,000 communication symbols (including Mayer-Johnson), it has built in environmental control capability, can be purchased with an airlink to connect wirelessly, has hot swappable batteries and the greatest aspect it has 20 G of memory (for those learners with thousands of messages or who utilize the MP3 or video features).

AMDI a long standing static display device company is now offering the TechTouch. It uses the VS Communicator Software with built in e-mail and text message program or your choice of other programs (i.e. Boardmaker or the Grid). It has all the same features of the ComLink above, including the 20 G of hard disk, but I saw no mention of a wireless option, except I saw no mention of a wireless feature. It comes pre-installed, if you want, with a Deassey mounting plate.

I have been watching the Tellus+ overseas for a while, but have finally found out that FRS is a USA vendor of the device. The Tellus+ kicks some serious backside. It has, get this, 40 G of memory! It runs on the XP platform, has WLAN (wireless) and bluetooth! There are five "always available" buttons down the right side, that can control the volume, be a date and time button or what ever you want. It runs MindExpress or EuroSuite. All this and the Tellus+ is barely six pounds! (The only drawback? The ECU is IR (GEWA) instead of X-10.) Oh, and you can also get a mid-size or handheld version of the Tellus.

You know what I want? I want to see the Tellus+ and the new Dynavox V go head to head before another device is chosen for my classroom! So FRS/Tellus and Dynavox, how 'bout it? Give us a comment and come visit my class to show us your stuff!

By the way, though not included because it is not exactly lesser know is the Dynavox V. Now that thing looks cool! Sit through the intro video, it is worth it! 40 G of memory! A light sensor to determine screen brightness (what an incredible idea!)! Some of the most intuitive programming software I have ever seen!

And now for a minor bout of negativity:

But still, a Dynavox has a stinky manual and my kingdom for a Dynavox rep in my area with some follow through, I have had an MT4 in the room for a year and we can't get a rep in to help us out for love or money~well, actually I haven't offered love or money, maybe that would work!!! Best technical support in the industry? Bah! If you like being canceled on maybe! But that being said the FRS website is twice as stinky as the Dynavox manual and they only have funding info for Ohio Medicaid (huh?) Neither of which is as bad as the Gus Communicator funding website, I dare say it is a terrible idea to brag about only being 80% covered. And I have only Assisitve Tech Inc, Satillo and Zygo to compare the Dynavox support with and neither of Saltillo nor Zygo have ever had a rep show up (although I could always get Assistive Tech Inc out when I needed them), but then again neither Zygo nor Satillo ever offered, nay, promised, in person tech support when we purchased those devices. Grinch, grinch, grinch. I sound like a bitter old lady. That is all my complaining for the month, I'm done (well at least on the blog).