Using an AAC device for communication

What is AAC? AAC is a set of tools and strategies that an individual uses to solve everyday communicative challenges. Communication can take many forms such as: speech, a shared glance, text, gestures, facial expressions, touch, sign language, symbols, pictures, speech-generating devices, etc. Everyone uses multiple forms of communication, based upon the context and our communication partner. Effective communication occurs when the intent and meaning of one individual is understood by another person. The form is less important than the successful understanding of the message.

As part of my Cerebral Palsy I was unable to speak until I was 4 years old. Until that time I used a picture board. Mine was different but this gives you the basic idea of a picture board. I think mine probably had things like mom, dad, sister, brother, toilet, hungry, thirsty and other words that a young child would need to communicate.


Once I learned to speak through the help of a speech pathologist I no longer needed my picture board. It wasn't until I moved away from home and no longer had my parents to speak for me if people didn't understand that I started asking what devices were available to help me. For me I use my AAC device in situations where my speech may not be understood (such as going to a new doctor or a social services agency) or in situations where I know I may not be heard because of noise levels as in situations where I need to speak louder my speech becomes more distorted.

My first device was a Dynavox. This is a great AAC device but I found for a person such as myself who has an unsteady gait, the portability of the device was not what I was looking for as I found it quite heavy. It did however have all of the options I wanted such as the alphabet board for spontaneous conversation and also allowed me to program messages for use in places I may need to use the device.



 My second device it was a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) with AAC software that had the same capabilities that the dynavox had but was alot more portable. I could place this, like a phone, in my bag or purse and take it out when needed.


 




 A few years after I got my PDA I purchased a Samsung tablet. Originally I purchased the tablet just like a lot others to replace my laptop to have something more portable to have when I went away on trips. I decided it was time to combine the two devices and started searching for AAC software to use on the tablet. I asked for some ideas from my AAC clinic and they recommended I use a software program called "Predictable', it had all of the features that I needed and has been my chosen AAC software for about the last year and a half.




 As I know a number of educators read my blog I thought I would relate this back to how having a speech impediments and/or having an AAC device can be effectively use in the classroom. For those students who have a difficult time getting their words out or who's speech may be unclear the best thing an educator can do is to give the student time to formulate their answers. If you know ahead of time what questions you will be asking, perhaps give the question to the student who may have difficulty speaking or using an AAC device time to form their answers.

Please feel free to ask me questions about any of my blogs.


For more information of people with communication disabilities please visit the 'Communication Disabilities Access Canada'.
http://www.cdacanada.com/

Technology when I was in High School

During the planning stages for transitioning from elementary to high school a number of things had to be taken into consideration. One of the bigger decisions was what writing tools would I be using. I had use a typewriter since I was in third grade but this was no longer going to be beneficial. With moving to a larger school and having rotation it was decided that I should have a laptop computer. It was a Toshiba 1000 and I remember how thrilled I was to be going to high school with my own laptop. In preparation for Grade 9, I took “Introduction to Keyboarding”, not that I needed to learn how to type but more so I could have time to familiarize myself with my new computer. I still did all the assignments required, just instead of using the typewriter I use my laptop. Taking this course allowed me to get out any of the bugs that I may encounter while using the computer. One example of this is due to my lack of fine motor coordination I always hit this one particular button by mistake ALL THE TIME. I do not recall what button it was, but I do remember that in order to fix the problem I had to turn the computer on and off again to get it to work. Because it was the summer there were no technicians around to consult with so the teacher and I had to problem solve for our self. One of the computer teachers did come by once or twice to see how things were going and it was then that we learned the power of the “ESC” button. I no longer needed to turn the computer on and off when I accidently hit wrong buttons.

As I started Grade 9 I now had one of the tools I needed to succeed. The computer had at disk drive and for my class work I would just save my work and then go to the resource room to print off my work. This wasted a great deal of time having to go back and forth from classes to resource to have work printed but that was the way it was. Some teachers allowed me to bring the work the next day which was great as then I could use my resource time to print off the day’s work as others wanted it right after class ended. Today it would be a lot different as a students can just email their work directly to the teacher,

My parents purchased a Toshiba 1000 for use at home which made it easier in that I did not have to carry the laptop back and forth. For most students carrying an extra 5 pounds would not be an issue, but for me the extra weight threw me off balance causing me to fall. Having a laptop both a school and at home meant that I only needed to bring my disks back and forth.

I used the laptop for the five years in high school and only a hand full of times did it break down. Unlike today where a student would hopefully be given a replacement while their computer was being fixed, I was left with nothing. This meant any class work I had to do had to either be handwritten by me (which meant it never got done on time), I would have to go to my resource teacher to have her scribe for me (which meant time away from the classroom) or I was able to take it home to finish, which was always my preference.

Again with another transition (to post-secondary) questions were asked, was the laptop doing what I needed it to or was it time again to look into a new piece of technology. In my next blog I’ll talk about my transition to post-secondary and my first encounter with Dragon.