Our approach
CALL assessment showed that the effort of trying to listen to what people were saying, think of what she might want to say, visually process a choice of symbols and a scanning cursor, and select a symbol by hitting a switch with her hand all at the same time was just too much for her. Frustration ++ !
She turned out to be much better at using her head to hit a single switch and she was an absolute 'whiz' at auditory scanning (aka 'auditory prompts'). In other words, so long as she heard a voice saying each symbol item as the cursor passed over it, she could execute an accurately timed switch press more or less faultlessly. By taking the need to use visual processing out of the equation, she speeded up and greatly expanded her range of vocabulary. Not only could she manage pages with 12 symbols/messages, she learned how to navigate from a 'Home page' to different topic pages, and back again. She found it especially enjoyable to find the page that opened with "I'm the Boss, you have to do what I say" and to command hapless staff to "do ten star jumps"!
In spite of her success, communication is very slow. Annie was therefore better served by complete messages and key words/short phrases; it was not realistic to expect her to form sentences word by word, and thus she did not need a complex device with spelling, internet connection, and all other possible bells and whistles. CALL recommended a DynaVox M3 device, with digital (recorded) voice output, operated by a single head switch, which school staff found pretty simple and user-friendly (alternatives might have been a GoTalk 32 Express; Sounding Board App for iPad).
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