Everyone has the right to be able to effectively communicate with those around them, but so many students are isolated and not able to communicate, this is something I myself take for granted daily. This causes fustration, anger and in some cases rage. Proloquo2go is an amazing program and learning about it made me want to run back to school and yell "why isn't everyone doing this". We have several children at our school who in my opinion should have access to this program. I think it's been a matter of teachers just not knowing where to start along with there not being enough hours in the day. (many students are using Pecs) When I had a dicussion with another teacher about how excited I was about this program she asked if I could help her with this! She has the technology at her finger tips she's needs support!
When we were told at the beginning of class, here are the two case studies chose one and develop a Prologu2go system for him/her, you have 5 hours. We are figured piece of cake, this will be done in no time. However, the further we got into the program development the quicker the realisation came that this wasn't as easy as we had originally felt it would be. We quickly learned this is a well thoughtout, highly important task that is very time consuming. Parental involvement and input would be extremely helpful in this process as they know their child's needs best.
We first planned using paper and sketched each layer then we started inputting and rearranging the icons and layers to best suit the needs of our student. It really is an ongoing process and every potential communication needs to be planned for the student, things from speech speed, people who will be commincated with, language needs, physical abilities, visual abilities etc. The task quickly became overwheleming. As a parent I know that this process would not all happen at once, it would happen before big events, outings etc. It would be a cummulative ongoing and evoling process!
Even though the task of desiging a prologu2go program seemed overwhelming, it was not because of the system itself it was the planning and layering of all the speech to best meet the needs of the studen. The program itself is so easy to use and really quite incredible. The ability to plan, design and use this augmentive device solely and to not have to print,copy,cut,paste and laminate a pecs program is incredible. It is such a time saver and ultimately so much easier for the students who use this program. Finally they have an voice! It really is a game changer!
Stephanie, I love your comment "Everyone has the right to be able to effectively communicate" and agree whole heartily! I work in a school that has many students with varying degrees of autism for most of these students communication is an issue. There are also two students that physical disabilities which have effected how their mouths/jaws developed making speech difficult. There are many frustrating days for these students when the messages are not coming across as quickly as they need to be. Finding out about Proloquo2go was amazing! I shared this with the learning center and she was able to get it installed on one of the iPads, and like you mentioned the planning and layering continues to be ongoing.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if you are aware but there are some other cool apps such as My Choice Board ($9.99) and Aeir Talk (free) which are great options and less time consuming than boardmaker!