Let's chat! AAC

To me communication equals a full life. I can't imagine not having the ability to use my voice. Without it are you truly living a full life? If a student is left with an augmentative and alternative communication device that is difficult to use or not suited to them then their ability to communicate is essentially stripped from them. Given the opportunity to design a Proloquo2go set for a case study allowed our group to really think about how to best suit an individuals needs. We created a communication set for a grade 3 girl who has good receptive language, working memory and experience using other forms of AAC. She also has limited use of one of her hands. We found that the initial set up work was time consuming, but only because we wanted to design a communication device that was appropriate for our individual. For example, she loves to ride horses, cook with her mom and is struggling to make friends. With that in mind we worked hard to create communication choices for her to help in those specific areas. Though it was time consuming we felt that it was time well spent.
The Proloquo2go app is incredibly easy to use and offers so many choices to individualize for particular wants and needs.  In order for the planning process to be effective we feel that the following people should be involved in the planning and design process: parents, teachers, specialists and of course, the child (if age appropriate). The child's literacy levels, and physical needs need to be considered as well as their experience with other forms of AAC. In the end we developed something along these lines:

We chose purple and pink colours because our little girl loves those colours and it needed to be appealing for her to want to use. Note - a child with visual difficulties would need colours that contrast.

We developed a chat folder to encourage her to develop relationships with her peers as she was experiencing difficulty in this area.

We chose to recommend that she use an iPod touch rather than an iPad because she has limited use of one hand and we wanted her to be able to use her device independently like this:

Rather than have to rely on somebody else to help her at all times like this:

Proloquo2go was so easy to use, and seems so effective that I end up thinking about two students in my class who are struggling with communication but who do not have access to assistive technology as of today. I wish there was an easier way to speed up the process for public school students who live in areas of high need. We have been waiting for one of my students to be fitted with the proper devices needed before we can implement Proloquo2go since September. I have another student who could certainly benefit from the use of this type of App but without a diagnosis it is seemingly impossible to secure the resources needed.  In an ideal world everybody would be able to communicate at their best possible level.

If you want to learn more about Proloquo2go there are a number of tutorials on the internet. I've linked one below that is long, but very informative.