iPads for Learners with Severe/Multiple Disabilities

Updated 11/4/2012


Cause and Effect Apps

Tap/Touch Anywhere

• BuzzBack Cause and Effect $0.99 - Cause and Effect for low vision, blind and deaf-blind individuals ***NEW***
• Hippi 1 $2.99 - Six different cause and effect activities ***NEW***
• Who's There? $0.99 - Cause and effect story app ***NEW***
• Baby Finger HD Free - Touch any where for random image and sounds or letters or numbers ***NEW***
• iBaby Buttons - Create buttons which show images and play sounds ***NEW***
• Hidden Grid $2.99 - Lite Brite style app
• Let Loose Free -Throw things at a picture
• Baby Dazzler $0.99 - touch the screen to add stars and sound effects to the image
• Draw with Stars Free - touch to draw stars, touch again to make the shoot
• Fluidity HD Free - touch the screen to make the glowing fluid flow and move
• Koi Pond Free - interact with your pond and its creatures
• Kid Fireworks Free and Fireworks $1.99 - touch the screen to make fireworks explode
• Little Gems Visual Scene Free - you finger is gravity sending the glowing gems spinning
• Reactickles Magic Free - beautiful sensory based cause and effect
• Somantics Free - Touch, tilt and camera create a unique interactive sensory experience
• Color Ripple for Toddlers Free - create rainbow scene with bright colors all with a touch
• Tap and See Series $2.99  - apps designed for learners with CVI (Cortical Vision Impairment) to encourage looking, tracking and other visual skills
• Colorful Balloons Free- touch the screen an balloons are released
• Cause and Effect Sensory Light Box $1.99 - the name pretty much covers it

Early Targeted Touch/Tap, Drag or Scroll

• Interactive Alphabet ABC $1.99 - Touch the letters on the screen to hear the letter, word and sound effect ***NEW***
• Press Here $0.99 - A story book where things happen when you touch the dot ***NEW***
• Peeping Musician $2.99 - touch a musician to make her play
• Rad Sounds $4.99 - touch to play music (switch accessible)
• Bubbles $0.99 - touch to pop bubbles or balloons
• Catch the Cow $2.99 - touch the cow to make something happen (switch accessible)
• Sounding Board Free - create communication boards using your pictures or included clip art (switch accessible)
• Hatch Free - touch the egg repeatedly and see what hatches
• Fish Fingers 3D Interactive Aquarium $0.99 - touch the water and fish come to your finger, tilt the screen and water splashes, interactive fish move when you do
• Baby Drums $2.99 - allows multi touch with scrolling and targeting - or not!  Play lots of instruments.

Refined Target Touch/Tap

• Aunty Maggie's Recipe $2.99 - Choose ingredients to make a secret potion (switch accessible)
• Picture Chase $2.99 - with your pictures and music as back ground chases of cats and butterflies, for example, ensue
• Picture Pusher $0.99 - learn how to target, drag and drop by putting images into a box, use your own pictures if you want
• Touch Trainer $4.99 - instructional activity to teach targeting

Switch Accessible (using an iOS switch interface such as the APPlicator)

• Games

• Catch the Cow $2.99 - click the cow to make something happen
• AAC
• Sounding Board Free - create communication boards that scan using your pictures or included clip art
• Photo VOCA $37.99 - create communication boards that scan using photos
• PicBoard $7.99 and TalkBoard $17.99 - create communication boards using pictures in your albums
• Speak for Your Self LAT Kids Free - customizable AAC

Companies Selling Multiple Switch Apps

• Apps from tBox
• Predictable $159.99 - for literate users an advanced text to speech system with scanning or direct select that includes social media integration
• Scene and Heard $49.99 - visual scene based display AAC created using "hot spots"
• Apps from Conley Company/TapSpeak
• TapSpeak Button $9.99 - record a message for play back, store each as long as you like
• TapSpeak Button Plus - $34.99 - same as above but includes symbol set
• Tap Speak Button Plus for iPad $34.99 - same as above but for iPad
• TapSpeak Sequence $19.99 - record and store sequential messages for playback
• TapSpeak Sequence Plus $34.99 - same as above but includes symbol set
• Tap Speak Choice for iPad $99.99 - create communication boards with 1-56 messages per page, text-to-speech and a full symbol library
• Apps From Alexicom
• Alexicom Elements Storymaker $9.99 - create switch accessible books
• Alexicom AAC Free - make communication boards
• Alexicom Elements (Child or Teen, Male or Female) $19.99 each - customizable communication page sets 
• Alexicom Elements Core (Preschool, Child, Teen or Adults, Male or Female) core vocabulary based AAC
• Apps from Attainment

• Read to Learn $39.99 - 85 stories with graded comprehension checks.  Incudes Life Skills Readers, Safety Skills Readers and Focus on Feelings Books
• Go Talk Now $79.99 - complete AAC app with scanning, symbols included
• Apps from RJ Cooper
• Rad Sounds $4.99 - click to play music
• Scan-A-Word $4.99 - spelling app with scanning switch support
• Scan-to-Pictures $4.99 - AAC training program 
• Apps from MarbelSoft (prices vary)



• MarbleSoft Click To Read Book Series ($9.99 each) each book has a story tied to the common core and related questions, works with touch or a switch(es) titles include: "My Country", "A Leader Is", "I Can Help",  and "Recycle It" (these work fantastic with the Unique Learning Program).  Books use the SymbolStix Symbols.
• Koppy Kattz $19.99 - cause and effect through more advanced memory games for one or more players using switches or touch
• Scan and Match $19.99 - find the match using your switch(es)
• Switch Kids $9.99 (limited free version as well) - three kind of games include cause and effect, multiple choice cause and effect and sequential cause and effect
• Apps from Creative Communicating ($9.99 each)


• E-I-E-I-O Adapted Play Book
  
• Peanut Butter Adapted Play Book
• Inclusive series of apps (about $2.99 each - see page for ever expanding list)

Inhibitor Pages on AAC Devices

Sometimes it seems as if their is an all or nothing choice when deciding what other programs and activities to add to high technology speech generating devices for our students.  Sometimes we decide against giving access to recreational activities on speech devices because the student is impulsive and “gets into things” or “just plays”.

The choice isn’t all or nothing, however.  One option is inhibitor pages. Inhibitor pages are something I started using for a student who used an eye gaze based AAC device and was constantly “getting in trouble” for accessing iTunes and online videos.  Inhibitor pages were just one tool in helping the student learn there is a time and a place for leisure activities.  Other tools used included both positive reinforcement for using these activities only during appropriate times and a response cost program of “strikes” which ultimately could result in the loss of internet and iTunes for a period of time.  I now use inhibitor pages on many students devices.  You can create them on just about any high tech dynamic display device.

An inhibitor page consists of a reminder or visual cue and a choice.  The page layout and cell/button size can be designed to facilitate appropropriate choices.  So if a student activates a button which links to a recreational activity like online videos or music an inhibitor page can be inserted before that link works.  For example clicking on “iTunes” brings the user to an inhibitor page as it plays a message like (using a lower volume if desired), “Remember music is a leisure time choice.  Please be sure it is ok to listen now.  Should you be opening iTunes?”  The reminder is careful not to ask, “Do you WANT to open iTunes?” instead asking the user to think about the action he or she is able to take.  The large “no” button brings the user back to the main or home page and not back to the previous page, which can prevent repeating the interaction impulsively.  The small “yes” button opens the chosen program, activity or website.  Teachers and families should introduce the inhibitor page a way for the student to make better choices and direct instruction should happen so the student learns precisely when and where he or she can say “yes”.

The concept of inhibitor pages reminds me of the quote:
If a child can’t read, we teach them.
If a child can’t add, we teach them.
If a child can’t behave, we punish them?
Teachers teach.

Teach Me AAC

One of the possible curriculum to use to teach students with complex communication needs is Teach Me AAC.  Teach Me AAC is just beginning to make a dent in the world of AAC for those with severe or multiple special needs, as it rightly should.  Teach Me AAC was created by Pati King-Debaun.

Teach Me AAC uses research proven techniques for teaching AAC skills, such as Aided Language Stimulation, re-casting and repetition.  Language is arranged pragmatically and guides conversation.  Compared with some other books it is much smaller and more usable for teachers, para professionals and families who shy away from giant books with hundreds of pages and super difficult means of access.  Also the Teach Me AAC book is available in an identical dynamic display version using Boardmaker Speaking Dynamically Pro and there are rumors that one or more of the "big three" AAC companies will add this system to their selections.  The Boardmaker SDP version does import perfectly into the Tobii Communicator software, making it ideal for eye gaze users who have this speech device.

You can download a sample of the Teach Me AAC book here.  Or purchase the book individually or as part of a curriculum here.

A free course is available online to learn more about Teach Me AAC.  It can be found at EduWorkshops.  Use Teachme as both the log in name and password.

Unfortunately embedding is disabled for the videos the author has posted online, but here are the links so you can see it in action.

• Teach Me AAC Course and Light Tech Book
• Modeling/Aided Language Stimulation
• Coaching and Scripting
• Repetition with Variety

Here are some handouts explaining the system behind Teach Me AAC.

Finally here is the blog about Teach Me AAC and the Communican Classroom that Pati wrote:  Teach Me AAC Blog.

In AAC it matters little what church you belong to, as long as you BELIEVE!

I spent the past week at the International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication Biannual Conference, held this year in Pittsburgh, PA (and in 2014 it will be in Portugal).  I learned a lot and enjoyed my time meeting people I had only known online before then.  A few days into the conference, however, I started joking that we all needed color coded dots on our name tags as shorthand to tell others which "church" of AAC we have joined.

What I mean is that people who believe dogmatically in a certain system of AAC (or device or symbols) to the exclusion of others and are such fervent believers that they appear to belong to a sect or a very demanding church.  Some people needed green dot because of their belief in Facilitated Communication (now sometimes called supported typing) while others needed a red dot because of their belief in PODD (Pragmatic Organization for Dynamic Display).  Still others needed other color dots for Visual Scene Displays, MinSpeak/Unity, Word Power, and Bliss Symbolics.  Of course there were also people who needed some identification to show that it was a specific hardware or system they followed, the PRC people (and correspondingly MinSpeak/Unity/LAMP), the Dynavox folks, etc.  And then there where those who needed some kind of mark to show they followed a personality more so than anything else, Bruce Baker, Gayle Porter and Janice Light (to name only a very small few).

There is nothing wrong with believing strongly in any of these "churches" of thought in AAC.  All these people and the people behind all of these systems are trying to do good.  They believe in the power of augmentative and alternative communication.

The problem seems to come when followers of any of these believe in them so ardently that they cannot allow for the fact that there are other ways of doing things.  The problem increases when we in the field push one means or method of AAC over another merely because it is what we know well, it is the church we belong to, at the exclusion of systems or supports that may be more suited to the situation at hand.  Additionally, proselytizing our own churches of AAC to parents and future AAC users can give the false impression that the system, symbols or device are more important than how we implement it.

Families and future AAC users are frequently lead to believe that if we just, "get it right" with the selection of a system, device or symbols then communication will happen, like magic.  This isn't true.  Learning to be an efficient and functional AAC user takes years and years of instruction and hard work.  Professionals bemoan families who will not use AAC systems or devices at home, but we don't spend much time looking at how our actions created this reality.  We, usually without meaning to, create the idea that getting the system is the cure, then we fail to follow best practice in implementation.  Truthfully, communication success with AAC depends much more on implementation than anything else, on how we teach and present AAC.

If we moved our focus from our "churches" to how we implement AAC, no matter which system, device or symbols, we would see more competent communication users and less abandoned devices.

Some suggestions:

Before anything else, as I was reminded in the comments, but should always state - Presume Competence! There is no such thing as "too low to communicate".

• Create a language rich environment - label everything, not just with the symbol for the thing but also with sentence strips using core vocabulary, so instead of the symbol for "light switch" by the light switch but a sentence strip of "Turn the light on" over the switch and "Turn the light off" under the switch.  Then model by pointing to each word on the label, and if possible in the communication system, EVERY time you use it.  Use visual schedules.  Model, model, model these adaptations ALL THE TIME.

• Train all those who work with students who use AAC, including professionals outside special education and speech such as PT and OT as well as parents, siblings and peers in implementation techniques

• Use more symbols not less, assuming you should "start small" seems obvious, but with only 4, 6, 8 or 10 symbols there is not much to say and little to model.  Start with a larger vocabulary for best results.

• Aided Language Stimulation is a must - all those involved in implementation MUST consistently and constantly model the use of the communication system (no matter which communication system)

• you can do this by using the student's device yourself and having others use it
• you can do this with wall charts 
• you can do this with another system or device for the adult to use to model
• you can do this with a printed version of a higher-tech system
• you can do this with an ELMO camera placed over a low or high tech device
• you can do this in so many other ways, your imagination is the only limit
• using Aided Language Stimulation will slow the teacher/therapist/communication partner down, increasing time for verbal processing
• think of Aided Language Stimulation as "Immersion", everyone agrees that immersion is the best way to learn a foreign language, creating an immersion environment for AAC is also the best way to learn Augmented Communication

• Zip your lips and wait.  Nothing is more important than quieting yourself and allowing an AAC user to listen, think, form a message and respond.  I will say it again, ZIP your lips and WAIT!

• Use the "expectant pause" during conversations, when it is the AAC users turn to participate, learn forward, keep your eyes kindly on the user, look ready but patient and BE QUIET.

• After the message use re-casting to edit the user's message - If the child makes the message, "I good." You re-cast it by saying, "I am good."  (This one comes naturally to moms and those who spend time with small children.)  

• Ask open ended questions to expand, "I think you are good.  Why do you think you are good?"

• Respond to every communication attempt - even if it is just to say you heard him or her and the answer is no.  

• Assume intentionality to teach intentionality.  One of the worse things we can possibly do is doubt the child's communication.  How many times have you heard someone say, "I don't think he meant that", right in front of the student?  We must assume that all communication is purposeful for the child to learn that communication is a worthwhile endeavor.  

• Make sure the device or system is always available, how else will the user learn how important and valuable it is if we don't go through that trouble?

• You are not the blue fairy, you do no good to anyone by magically reading an AAC users mind and providing everything they need whether they ask or not.  (Yes, maybe you are his or her mother, but how would you like it if YOUR mother tried to read YOUR mind?)  Learn to step back and wait for requests, if you must take action then model how to request on the user's device before you do

• Have a low tech back up to high tech systems, and teach how to use that too

• Beyond all else, BELIEVE!  Believe in the power of AAC.  Believe in your power to give the gift of communication.  BELIEVE that your student or child can learn how to communicate.

Can I get an, "Amen"?

P.S.  I had many, many conversations with and watched many presentation by teenagers and adults who use AAC fluently at the ISAAC conference.  Some used Words+, some used RollTalks, some used Toby Churchill Lightwriters, Some used PODD, some used Dynavox, some used iPads, some used Tobii C-eye and many used PRC devices.  I even watched a girl at the airport use her Dynavox to ask her father a million and one questions about their holiday in New York after the conference.  There is NO such thing as one size fits all in AAC. 

Candy Corn Switch

This new switch, the Candy Corn,  is very exciting.  It is a proximity switch, meaning that you don't actually have to touch it to activate it!  Normally such switches are extremely expensive (meaning that many of us have never used them or make magnet activated switches ourselves).  

• activates when you get within of 10 mm
• visual and auditory feedback
• standard 3.5 mm switch jack
• works with communication devices, environmental controls and other items using a standard switch jack
• sleek design
• $150.00

from Ablenet, Inc.

ISAAC conference 2012 parade of flags

If I Had a Hammer