Other App

Screen reading software. Take a photo of written text and it will read the text back to you aloud

Brief description

• Available as an app or software

• Choose to hear the text read word by word, line by line or hear the whole text read out

• Speed up/slow down the screen reading voice

Customiseable app to enable the non-verbal/non-literate user to send text messages to designated communication partners

The user presses a sequence of 2 messages to be automatically sent by text to the communication partner of their choice. All messages are represented by a picture/photo (e.g. I need shopping, please get me some apples)

Pictures, text labels and spoken labels can all be customised

App can be modified remotely (i.e. SLT/carer can change messages on a desktop and it will be immediately available to the user on their tablet/phone)

App which describes the world around you (designed for people with vision impairment)

Point the phone camera at:

- short typed or handwritten text (e.g. a greetings card) & it will speak it aloud

- whole documents & it will speak the text aloud

- barcodes & it will speak out the product name

- a scene & it will give an auditory description (e.g. busy street with people & cars)

NB there is a long delay before it detects and speaks out the text/scene 

Free app which describes the world around you (designed for people with vision impairment)

Point the phone camera at:

- short typed or handwritten text (e.g. a greetings card) & it will speak it aloud

- whole documents & it will speak the text aloud

- barcodes & it will speak out the product name

-  a scene & it will give an auditory description (e.g. busy street with people & cars)

- a person & it will describe them (e.g. a 40 year old, happy blonde woman). If the person has been saved in the user's photos, it will speak out their name.

- currency and it will speak out the amount

App designed for creating therapy exercises

Create 'boards' of vocab to practise and incorporate these into spelling games (anagrams, missing letters, word search, cross words) or semantic exercises (odd one out, sorting exercises) or sequencing exercises.  Set up easy familiarisation activities for the user to familiarise themselves with the vocab items

The user can also record their speaking attempts

Suggested photos and voice recordings are provided but you can choose your own if you prefer

Exercises to encourage inference making from photos of real-life situations (places, events, feelings, situations etc.)

200 pictures are included in 7 exercise formats: what happened? Jobs, places, seasons, feelings, conversations & thoughts.  For each photo, the user is asked to make an inference about the picture (the user can request 3 multiple choice options if they are struggling to make the inference). They are then asked 'How do you know?' (no prompts are given for this part of the exercise).

Could be used to ellicit spoken or written responses

Could be useful when working with people with TBI or as conversation topics

Results are not stored in-app but can be emailed each time an exercise is completed. 

Results are reliant on the user correctly self-rating whether they were correct or not (if they are using the app independently)

7 vocabulary sets are provided:

4 Basic: 4 cell basic vocabulary set

Communication Journey Aphasia: 12 cell  vocabulary set with adult & aphasia orientated vocab

MyCore: 108 cell categorised word bank for those with some literacy & good cognition & semantics

Spelling: 40 cell QWERTY keyboard with word prediction & phrase bank

VocabPC: 12 cell vocab set with activity vocab, category based vocab, carrier phrases

Multichat:15 cell vocab set in 3 versions: adult, adolescent, student. Contains activity vocab, category based vocab, questions & keyboard with word prediction

My Quickchat: 4, 8 & 12 cell layouts designed for AAC users. Adult & child versions available for each layout

3 versions available: Lite, full & full version with WordPower. Lite version doesn't speak & personalised pictures cannot be added - it's for evaluation purposes & couldn't really be used as a communication support

Other features:

Can be personalised with user's vocab & phrases. Pre-progammed vocab is American (e.g. purse for handbag)

User's photos can be used in place of symbols

Can use recorded or synthesised speech.  UK voices can be downloaded

Easy & intuitive to program

Word prediction on the keyboard is not the best available

Adult appropriate, photo based AAC app. Easy to edit and add own vocabulary. Favourites & history links so the user can readily find a message they recently constructed.

Immediate access to Yes/No messages and to a body chart with a pain scale.

When an item is selected, it moves into the message window where it appears only as text.  For someone with no reading this could be frustrating and difficult to use.

3 high street scenarios are offered (sweet shop, pizza restaurant & a jewellery shop) where the user must order what they are told to via the auditory instruction

Up to 5 levels with increasing number of items & modifiers and also temporal directions. Includes an option to include background noise & adjust the volume of the environmental noise

Designed for children and very American voice . The reward activities can be turned off. However it may be useful for users wishing to work on listening tasks with added levels of distraction

Error handling: none

Prompts/cues: none

Record results: results can be accessed within the app by activity or by date