



S1: okay Rebecca. <P :04> did i get the right (xx) 
S2: yes. <P :04> when i wanna go to the next slide do i just hit enter?
S1: um enter or space bar or, [S2: okay ] right click. [S2: okay ] or right, [S3: arrow down or ] arrow 
S2: (that's okay) [S4: N too ] that's a lotta <LAUGH>
S1: M too? [S4: N ] N. yeah N for next. P for previous if you want to back up. 
S2: oh okay.
S4: or plus or minus. [S2: uh ] or page up page down. 
<SS LAUGH> 
S3: page up page down that's a good one that's what i
S2: i think that's like too many choices for me. [S4: (xx) ] okay i'll pick one of 'em. okay my topic survey was on augmentative and alternative communication systems. okay and the, the first slide is what are augmentative and alternative communication systems or A-A-C devices. and um they're designed for people who can't, speak or write or, have maybe a, a problem with speaking or writing, maybe they can't speak or write fully, due to neuromuscular disease or injury. an A-A-C user in communicating with other people, and telling them what their wants and needs are. and i also see this as, an important safety measure in case of emergencies if someone can't communicate, a situation or how they're feeling if an emergency comes up, an A-A-C system can be a good source of safety. there are two basic types of A-A-C systems. um one is for conversational or speech needs, and um, some examples are if you wanna talk to friends and family or if you wanna talk on the telephone, um if you're in a classroom or at work and, just to specify what your wants and needs are. and then there's also graphical or written needs, that people have. and that's if you wanna write letters, or you have assignments, or you would like to draw or do some sort of artistic work. um, people who can benefit from A-A-C devices, are people with a damaged larynx, or cerebral palsy, A-L-S, traumatic brain injury, stroke, and if you have um a spinal cord in- injury and you can't use your hands then you can benefit from this. the first device i'm gonna go over, is um talking picture cards. and the company that developed these specific cards are Crestwood Company. and basically it's a way for someone to communicate with other people by pointing to the actual card that expresses their need. um when you get a package of cards there's a hundred and fifteen functional cards in that package, and there's eight different classifications that you have. um, they specify, things about your room bathroom health, any aids that you need food clothes people miscellaneous. and there are five languages on the reverse side of the card or you can get sign language if you want, and the cost is thirty-one ninety-five. the pros about the picture cards, is that they're easy to use and transport, and you don't need fine motor control in order to use them. um they're fairly inexpensive. but, with the picture cards you have a fairly limited vocabulary and you can only use these pictures so, the picture may not show the exact need that the person needs or, if the other person is looking at the picture they might not understand what the person wants from just looking at a specific picture. or you may be communicating with someone that is vision impaired and can't see the picture very clearly and so then you're not communicating very effectively. and also i thought, with a hundred and fifteen cards you need to sort through, a lot in order to communicate. so you're constantly like sorting through all these cards to get from, one communication to the other. so that can be difficult. um Crestwood also has, what they call Crestwood Passports and these are more specific to the talking picture cards. but um, they include items such as fast food supermarket shopping school, recreation, um casual dining personal needs drugstore shopping center and health. and what these are is just it's a packet of portable book with specific, uh pictures in there so you can go and do a specific activity and, the one i have is, an example of fast food items. and i found this on their website. this is a lady named Mary and um she has a limited vocabulary and people have difficulty understanding her and she has the fast food passport. and here it shows her going to Wendy's for the first time and ordering her meal by herself. um the passports have about forty-four picture cards each, and they come in a portable book and it's twenty-three ninety-five per passport. um the pros i see are that cards are specialized for a certain activity and they're inexpensive, but um, you know once you leave Wendy's or McDonald's or whatever you can't u- really use your fast food passport anymore so it's very specific and you have to have a lot of these passports. and Crestwood Company also has what they call Crespeaker. it's a handheld device and you can type in words phrases and sentences, and it will speak them for you. it also translates from English to Spanish and Spanish to English. and they show people using this, on the telephone. so they'll hold the, device up to the phone receiver and actually talk with the device. um, it's also very small and easy to operate, you can enter up a hundred characters which is about eighteen words, and there are also built-in phrases about four hundred and two built-in phrases. they, basically advertise this device not only for people with communication difficulties, but if you're traveling or you're learning English or Spanish as a second language, they also um... they also s- you know promote this device for that. um and it has a male voice and it's three hundred and seventy-nine dollars and ninety-five cents. so it's_ good thing about it is it's compact and has large number of built-in phrases for the user, and you can also type and enter in phrases, so you don't have to use all the preprogrammed phrases that they have. but um, it is a compact design so you'd need some fine motor control in order to use it. if you couldn't target very well you might not be able to, press all the buttons and type in what you wanted. and it only has a male voice so, that's bad if you're a s- a child or female. you might not wanna talk with a male, voice. um Enabling Devices has, a device called a portable talking I-D, which you can wear around your neck, and record a twenty-second message on your name, address phone any special needs. and um this is basically used, in case there's an emergency then somebody can press the device and, you know find out who you are and if you have any special needs and what they need to do in that emergency. um it's very simple and effective easy to activate, it's also very visible. so people can see it, if there is an emergency, but it could be a nuisance wearing this um, big device around your neck around your clothing, and also, if, you don't use it every day or check it every now and then, you may forget you need to replace the batteries and then, you're wearing this thing and it doesn't work, anyway when the emergency comes up. another device made by Enabling Devices is a Step Talk. and here it has a series of prerecorded messages, that are_ have a seven, seventy-five second limit. so, allows people to carry on a conversation with these prerecorded messages. and that's ninety dollars. um it's inexpensive and easy to use, but with the prerecorded messages, you don't have a lot of flexibility in communicating you have to basically use, what the device already offers. and here's a device by Frame Technologies it's, called a Book Talker it looks like a book, and there're six different levels, of messages that you can go, to and from with um the manual switch, on the right hand side. okay it also has, optical level changing in addition to that, or i guess instead of the manual switch, i don't have a picture of that. and um when the page is turned, the Book Talker knows which level it's on, and, there are six levels, with twenty-four messages each level. so two hundred and eighty-eight messages total. and this device is five hundred dollars. one of the good things about this is that you have organized levels of messages so when you get used to the Book Talker, you're probably really good at switching from different levels and using those levels. and also the fact that it has optical level changing, you don't need accurate motor control or if you don't have any, um control of your arms or hands then this would be a very good device. um but it is fairly expensive and, again it has all prerecorded messages so there aren't messages, that you can come up with yourself. um Frame Technologies also has Voice-in-a-Box, this is almost a simpler design, there are only sixteen messages on the screen and three-point-seven-five seconds each message which is actually, fairly short. um but it is easy to use and record and it has a light so you know when you're recording the messages. um, it's a hundred and ninety-five dollars and, i see this as a good device for someone that doesn't have fine motor control, and can't target very easily because there are large and easy-to-use buttons on this device. but it does have minimal message capabilities. um there's a device called Say-It-All by Innocomp. this is actually a little more advanced. it has what they call a speech synthesizer, where you can choose different voices, and you can also choose the pitch of the voice, and different sounds and so you can really customize what voice you want it to have. there's a look-up table of over sixteen thousand nouns. um, they have new technology that allows, the user to type in any name city state country, and have it spoken correctly without resorting to phonetic spellings. they also have clarity speech, which gives a human-sounding text to speech. and, as i said before it's available in male or female female voice and you can alter the pitch voice volume. and it has ability to have an unlim- unlimited vocabulary cuz you can use text, text to speech or you can use their stored phrases. um, something they promote this device for is that, it's ideal if you have changing communication needs if, your communication needs change through time then this device can adapt to that. and also, allows some flexibility if you have multiple users... it's lightweight two and, a quarter pounds it's very s- very lightweight. and has eight hundred and forty-six, definable phrases. the, device costs about two thousand dollars and if you want the speech synthesizer so that you can customize your own voice then it's, thirty-five hundred. so the pros are that it offers a great deal of flexibility and speech capacity but it's extremely expensive. and the last device i had was the Pathfinder. um, this has a color display and also has touch screen technology. and you can use an infrared head-pointing access for the key- keyboard. and this also has this thyn- synthesized speech. that comes with it. um users can upload and download information from computer disks onto this device. and it also has notebook and journal function for writing letters or papers, and a text editor. it also has calculator clock and word prediction. and it's about four and a half pounds... um, it also incorporates a couple different things language activity monitoring, which basically records language events so that, you can see the progress the person is making with their communication tool through time. and, again it has a infrared head-pointing device that you can use, but this device is, eight thousand dollars. which is, very pricey. <LAUGH> so um the pros are that you do have head-pointing access and unlimited capabilities with this device, but it's really comes a- at an outrageous price. okay, there're some areas of research that i saw with A-A-C systems, the first one is dynamic display. so instead of having just um, a static picture on a sheet of paper or, on the, on the display of the A-A-C device, the they will have a dynamic display where the pictures change depending on your selection. and there are also, there's a lot of work being done on optical control or different, um types of control for the di- device rather than just using your hands. and also there's a lot of, uh research being done on increasing the performance and efficiency of the devices. so that they can incorporate more words into the device and be more effective communication tools. um, one, research area i saw by InvoTek is, a laser that will point as- at a laser sensing surface and acts as the keyboard. and the last thing that i found by InvoTek at Michigan State University this one's actually pretty slick it's um, what the device does is it listens to a conversation between the A-A-C user and the person they're talking to, and actually tries to predict what the A-A-C user will say next. and so it helps them formulate sentences so they don't have to use as many key strokes, when they communicate with another person. so that's, that's kinda interesting. and then um, and my references. are there any questions? 
<P :05> 
S3: just one comment that, uh the Pathfinder from what i understand is pretty cool, uh [S2: yeah and it's really slick. ] there's like a six month waiting list to get 'em, uh they're, all the rage.
S2: yeah i mean i think if, if um you needed that device, eight thousand dollars, i mean in a way it's like, what's money? but, you know if you really [S1: you don't have it ] need it and it's, but yeah but if you don't have it then you can't really say that. <LAUGH> yeah it looks, it looks like this is the best device i've seen out there. [S3: mm ] yeah... is that it? okay. 
S1: anybody else?
<APPLAUSE SS> 
S3: yay
S1: gee i don't remember too many other people getting applause.
S3: you're just extra special.
S2: oh okay. <LAUGH> you want me to just leave my disk in here? or <P :07> okay.
<P :11> 
S1: let's see, so <BREAK IN RECORDING> and we will pick this up, next time. <P :07> so Marissa, you're up.
S5: alright. <P :13> i had, um the distinct pleasure of playing with, the Alpha Talker. um, the Alpha Talker is, uh a basically it's an introductory augmentative, um communication aid and it uses Minspeak which i'll describe in a minute, um to store and retrieve messages. um really it's meant, uh the users are kind of beginners, this is probably their first, uh communication system that's you know, computer based. um, and it really allows you to learn at your own pace. (xx) <SU-F LAUGH> alright the basic package um basically, uh comes with you know it's this, which is a key guard, your actual computer base, um, overlay, which is this is a sample overlay they also give you, several blank ones so you can kinda make up your own stuff. um, if you_ the memory, basically can store about three and a half minutes of speech, at uh high quality and five and a quarter, minutes of speech for, um lower quality or standard quality. uh it comes with uh thirty-two, keys you can also get it in four, which is this one here or eight which they didn't have, um there but you can also get it in eight. and you can get optional memory packages that are, you know give you fourteen and half minutes of standard speech. um but the memory package is about nine hundred dollars more, uh at least. <S3 LAUGH> that's what it's, was on the website and the website actually had all the information on the Alpha Two, and this is the Alpha One. the Alpha Two is about two grand for a base, and then you add a whole bunch of options if you want the extra memory it, it's it's a pretty expensive little toy. um, on the front of the Alpha Talker, we have a couple things i wanna point out one of which is the control panel which is this little guy right here. uh this control panel lets you do just about everything that's on here um that it can do it lets you select, um if you're using a thirty-two (xx) four location keyboard, it lets you, uh switch between your input devices you can use switches keyboards head-pointing, um it also lets you store and record, all of your messages review your messages, and erase uh whatever messages you want to erase off of here. on the back of it, you can see that it's got a bunch of little things here, this you know you've got your battery charger, you've got a dual, um control which you can plug in um either a dual switch or a head-pointer, we've got a microphone so_ there is a microphone in the control panel this little black thing here is a microphone but if you want an external mic for better recording, uh you can plug that in here. um there is a switch here that allows you it's um, allows you to connect up to a computer, so you can end up storing, um, things you have in memory, uh you can, the memory on here you can actually store onto a disk is (you) can have three or four different types of, um, i- three or four different overlays you can have the memory associated with each overlay in a computer. um, you also have another sw- this is a mono, button for the s- for a single switch you have external speakers you can put in here, you have a jack for headphones, you have a speaker volume, um adjustability so that's the sp- you know the volume that it'll speak to someone else but then you also have an ear volume, so in case you know if you have a headphone or something like that that you're listening with and you use some of their auditory prompts, um you can hear it at uh specialized volumes... alright. do do do. um, as i said before you can plug it in, um the battery does charge and it does hold a charge so i'll be able to kinda hold it up for you guys. um, turning it on and off is pretty simple, it's right here in the control panel, um, <DEVICE BEEPS> gives a little beep. uh now this is_ these buttons up here, are really kind of hard t- hard even for me to press down so i wouldn't, really imagine that someone who's actually gonna be using this device unless they have, very good motor control, um is actually gonna be using the control panel this kinda stuff, is going to be left for the caregiver. um, and it automatically powers down after two minutes that's the the setting that it's on um, you can change that however by going into the toolbox. alright, let's talk a little bit about Minspeak. you see all these little icons on, on the keyboard here. well they don't necessarily mean anything until you put meaning to them. so basically what Minspeak does is you can take a combination of one, two, or three different, icons and make a phrase. and um, so basically, you can store a large number of messages with only a few keystrokes. so um, let's see if we can demo something here. um, <PRESSING BUTTONS> i, <PRESSING BUTTONS> and that was this_ that was three key strokes so you have <PRESSING BUTTONS> i want to, play, with, a person <SS LAUGH> and you can see that, um the the messages that are they're recorded in a non-synthesized speech they're actually someone's voice that's actually me. um, but there's other ones here too. <PRESSING BUTTONS> <PRESSING BUTTONS> so you can actually have you know if you wanna record a child's voice or you wanna record a, a man's voice you kinda have your option as to what voice you wanna put into it. and you can exchan- or you're you can change the expression, and some of the intonation with different things so it gives you a little bit more flexibility so if you wanna have like an exclamation point cowabunga or something like that you can kind of, have that inflection in your voice. um and then you know if you wanna just have a single key, <PRESSING BUTTONS> <PRESSING BUTTONS> so, you can have a single key too. um, now, with Minspeak however, if you um, if you have a three key sequence, but you also have, you have maybe two keys like, you know <PRESSING BUTTONS> i like to play with Sammy. <PRESSING BUTTONS> okay, but you also wanna say let's play, and maybe you don't wanna say with Sammy or with another friend. <PRESSING BUTTONS> <PUSHING BUTTON> you actually have to press the last button twice. so you know the more complex you get with these sequences, the more cognitive ability your user needs to have. and um, that gets into the toolbox a little bit. we can change, how much we need, um how much cognitive ability we need to be able to use this. um what you actually do is you go into your little control panel here and you want to press this option select until you get to the tools, <SS LAUGH> and now we're in the toolbox. so what i'm gonna do, is open it up... <UNINTELLIGIBLE SPEECH UNTIL END> and, right now as you can see there are some buttons lit up and each of these, uh things has like a name on it, and um there's, uh, like this one here is the setting the scanning speed you can also scan with this, um setting the acceptance time that's actually, how long you can hold down a button before it actually activates, and let's say we wanna set that acceptance time, 
S1: okay i'm curious how do you connect eight different switches to that machine?
to something a little bit slower, so let's make it, to point-oh-five. the standard's point-oh-one so it's basically a press and a release. um, you can also set, um different types of scanning you can if you want to do a row column scan you do need to have an external s- you need to have a switch for that, and uh there's no switch here to really demonstrate it. but um, basically it would you know it just scans across the rows, and then you select the row with your switch and then it would scan across the columns. um but you can also make it do a circular or linear, motion so if you had maybe four, instead of thirty-two buttons you might have four or eight it might make more sense to just make it go in a circle and just scan each one. um, the lights you can either put on with auto or you can put it on hold, um auto means that it'll come on, when, uh, they'll come on when selected and hold it'll stay on, um, let's see here uh_ what there was one thing i wanted to_ okay. the biggest, the... um, the icon sel- prediction and selection we wanna make sure these two things are on. uh what this does is actually it'll only light up_ the icon prediction will only light up things that are active so things that you've stored messages in. so if i stored a message in... in this little guy here, his light would be on. but let's say we don't have any messages stored under this one here, as the first key, then that light wouldn't be on okay? and then as soon as i press him, anything that, is is a second button after him in that sequence will light up. so you'll kinda see well, after him i can press maybe there's four buttons and i'll show you that in a minute. but then the predictive selection, um, turns on only those keys that have the light lit. so if i press a button that doesn't have a light on, it won't even recognize that i've pressed that button. so it kinda helps you if you're making mistakes or anything like that. and then you can also um 
S5: you connect eight switches through either_ i think it's this one. y
turn on or off the beep feedback which i'm going to turn off right now. so then we put this guy back on... and he's upside-down... alright. then we need to get outta the toolbox. <P :08> alright. and then you have to press a key to activate, now i'm gonna put, i'm gonna put the head-pointer in just so i can show you a little bit how that works. and we have, have to turn the head-pointing on which it is actually, already. and normally this would be attached to some sort of like, um, headband or something to kinda control it with your head, but since it's you know that'd be kind of difficult for you to see i'm actually just gonna, use my hand. and it is actually very difficult i tried it and i had a very difficult time targeting and holding it there and everything like that. so let's say we wanna say, um <P :08> 
S1: uhuh
who's that so we have the question mark, we had to find it hold it, find it hold it, 
S5: yeah. yeah it it's actually_ they had um, a price for, the eight different switch is a hundred and twenty-five dollars for the extra large (targets)
and it would it'd tell you wh- you know ask who's that? um, so basically it's it's very similar to pressing the button, and when the head-pointer's on you can also press buttons. so... 
S1: i think that's why we don't have (xx)
S5: yeah
so anyway that's how the head-pointing works. um, but then you also need to be able to store and retrieve messages. so, in order to store or retrieve we need to go back into our toolbox, and, let's say we wanna say, hm what do we wanna say? let's just make a, a simple one. and we're just gonna do one button. so i'm gonna press store, that light comes on, and then all i do is i press, the key sequence i want, and then i press record. cool. oop, my memory's full. so i actually have to go through and erase something if i want to go and store that. so what we're gonna do is we're gonna press a key here <P :04> and we're gonna erase that. so all i have to do is, press the key sequence press erase, it'll beep and then i press erase again, and then it goes through and erases. now if you want to review every single one of the messages and you want to erase them one by one, it takes a very long time because you just press this review button, and you k- and it basically will go through at this corner and go through every single combination that you have for this one button here. so, it and it'll, if it stops erasing. it takes a while to actually erase the messages once that erase light goes out i can continue. um, but that's, how you erase and record. and, you can also, uh as i was saying you can use remote headsw- you can use remote switches you can use, um, like if you have an eight keypad you can use eight different switches that all come in may- maybe have one, you know relate to one position on that key pad. um, you can also use this as a keyboard emulator, by, um pu- loading in a specific program into this and putting an, overlay with letters on it, it hooks into the computer and it also does that, um, you can also, alright yeah. here's a reviewing of the messages. now the A-one H-one all those things those are um, those are called auditory prompts, and you can actually change those you can personalize them to your specific, um Alpha Talker, keyboard. so if you want this auditory prompt to be me, then you can change that simply by going into the toolbox, selecting your auditory prompts, and then going from there. so those things like let's say you couldn't see very well or you couldn't focus on things you could actually have an earphone, and you can turn on auditory prompt so anytime you hit something it'll tell you what it is, and then you press it again to select it. and in, it's very useful when scanning cuz it'll go down and scan the rows, and it'll tell you the first icon in each row alright? um, one other thing you can also do themes, where you can actually set say alright let's say i'm in the house theme, so that means that every button, that every first button has to do with house, so then when you set the theme to be the house they don't ever have to press that as the first button they just have to press the second and third buttons. um and that can be handy, uh sometimes however the person can't switch outta that mode unless they can work the control panel. so, um, a few of the pros and cons i saw it was a little bit difficult, um to review the messages it was hard to um, contr- use the control panel without real good motor control and targeting. um you really need to have a lotta thought into stuff before you start recording just because of all the overlapping symbols and things like that you wanna know exactly what this person needs to say. um, and then the clarity of the recording can be difficult the recordings you heard are all on the high quality, so that would only be, it'd only give you three and a half minutes of recording time. however, there're some of the pros are that it's it is real speech it sounds more natural you can put some inflection into your voice um the icons make you know mem- remembering things somewhat easy, and it's very customizeable you can customize your scanning speed you can customize your acceptance rates, um you can put stickers on things you can have all sorts of um, all sorts of things that you can change to the way you like them and what you need them for. alright um any questions? <P :04> and there's a lot more that i could have done with this (guy) there was so much stuff i was like 
{END OF TRANSCRIPT}

