Quick Review on Quick Communication

Published May 14, 2009 @ 10:32AM PT

$top half of iphone running proloquo2go application showing custom items nothing, about, us, without, and the text to speak at the top \"nothing about us without us\"$ Last week I used my new iPhone-as-communiation-device quite heavily and thus now have a real review on how the device functioned for me "in the field."

Joel Smith wrote an article Top Ten "Most Wanted" AAC Features which lists his top 10 features. It's a great list, so here is the device reviewed vs. each feature.

1) Durability: See stress test information aboutiPhone or iTouch.

2) Reliability: From Joel Smith's article, "There is no excuse for a device to crash, emit squeals or whispers instead of the desired voice, needing to be "rebooted," etc." On the downside, the software did crash out, more than once, when I was programming it, as happened in the demo video. On the upside, the software comes back to life even faster than seen in the demo video. Also of note is that checking email or running other processor-intensive applications will impact the reliability of the speech software, noticeably, and significantly enough so that the device is no longer adequate for communication (e.g., a 10+ second pause before something is spoken is not acceptable). Avoid requesting email, a web page, or otherwise have anything else "running" on the device in the background if the communication software is to to respond quickly enough to be viable.

3) Portability: The freedom to walk around with the device, to put it in a pocket and have hands free and then pull it out again and speak--to not have to lug 6 pounds of equipment everywhere, be worried about where to set up, be worried about chairs and flat surfaces--fantastically liberating!

4) Battery Life: A full day of use and half battery power was left. Not as good as some dedicated devices but a zillion times better than a laptop that only gets about 2 hours before needing a recharge. Definitely on the good end!

5) Bluetooth: Device is capable, but feature is not (yet) capitalized on.

6) Wireless Networking: Yup, check!

7) User Upgradeable Software: Also, check.

8) Customizable Appearance: Indeed, check. Also of note, the software gives the user a choice of background and text color, and size of the text and icons. For anyone who has difficulty reading certain color combinations or contrasts (*raises hand*) this is an excellent accessibility feature.

9) Inductive Charging: There are a wide variety of charging options available, including cradle-types and converters for international use.

10) Speech Quality: Acapela is about as good as it gets right now. However, a good quality portable speaker is a necessity; the built-in speakers are in no way adequate.

Additional Plus #1: Not having a screen or large piece of equipment between me and my communication partner changed the dynamic of interaction for the way better. People adapted to me using the device much more quickly and naturally, and were better able to ignore the device and focus on me the person and what I had to say.

Additional Plus #2: Awesome and active user community.

Additional Minus: I type 80-90 words per minute on a regular keyboard, fast enough (along with some programmed shortcuts) to keep up pretty well with slow-end-of-typical conversational speed. I type significantly slower than that on the iPhone keypad, even with the word prediction. However, it's a little hard to really complain about this considering the trade-off in portability and mobility. Looking forward to a portable bluetooth keyboard--then I can have the best of both worlds!

There are features I'd like to see in the future, and nitpicks I could make, but overall I couldn't be happier.

Is anyone else here using Proloquo2Go? If so, what do you think?

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Comments (4)

I also found this:
http://forums.thoughtsmedia.com/f349/freedom-bluetooth-keyboard-extra-row-less-money-66062.html

Posted by Ed Fancher on 05/14/2009 @ 11:28AM PT
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Sweet device! Is it compatible with iPhone and iTouch though?

Posted by Dora Raymaker on 05/14/2009 @ 11:48AM PT
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Great write up Dora. Thanks. This combo looks very promising, but I'm a nervous shopper when it comes to new technology. I'm getting itchy though. My son's school AAC is still brand new, so it's been a little hard to justify this so soon, but I'm working on it. There is so much that can be done on this platform at a new lower price point that it makes it very exciting.

I did finally get my son to play with an iTouch at a Best Buy. On his first try he held his finger on a song item a little too long and the delete option popped up. Hopefully Apple will give an option to lock this down sooner than later. As users have mentioned, backing up via sync should make that a minor issue.

Right now he gets annoyed if we try to get him to use his AAC at home even though he is great with it at school. I'm hoping the entertainment value of an itouch will help make it "his" at home, and be something he wants to use as the gadget relates directly to an entertainment goal.

I would be careful about buying any bluetooth devices before OS3 comes out, along with looking for explicit compatibility statements.

Posted by John Ruch on 05/14/2009 @ 12:31PM PT
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I am getting ever more curious about trying something like this. I got to play with an iPod Touch recently for the first time and it definitely seemed like a nice, portable size and a convenient interface. And in hearing about the battery life....wow, that's pretty amazing. My little netbook laptop can go for about 4 - 5 hours, and has some TTS capability right now, but definitely doesn't meet a lot of Joel's criteria per the list you linked (which is a really good list). It actually only recently occurred to me that more effective communication might even be *possible* in situations other than quiet office settings where I could sit down with a computer...wow. Am very glad to see such promising developments in this area.

Posted by Anne Corwin on 05/14/2009 @ 11:13PM PT
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Dora is committed to improving quality of life for individuals on the autistic spectrum--including herself! She is Co-director of the Academic Autistic Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education and a member of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network's Board of Directors.