#aac apps

[zebulontheplanet]

One thing I hate about some AAC companies, is their unwillingness to donate their apps to nonspeaking/nonverbal people. And yes, I know, people would abuse this. People would say they’re nonspeaking/nonverbal when they’re not, people would do blah blah blah.

But when a nonverbal/nonspeaking person contacts one of these companies and says “hey I’m nonspeaking/nonverbal and would really benefit from your app, would you be willing to donate?” And your response isn’t no, your response is basically saying “oh sorry we don’t do that, but if you’re a CERTIFIED SLP then sure, we can TOTALLY give you this app.” Or your response is not no, but “we actually put our app on sale three times a year, you should DEFINITELY check that out. Because you’re definitely employed /sarcasm” (even though most nonspeaking/nonverbal people aren’t because they’re severely disabled)

Like huh? You’re willing to give your app FOR FREE to SLPs, but not the people who actually need it? Make it make sense.

And yes, this means making programs within your company to give the app to nonspeaking/nonverbal people directly. This means, having the resources to give your SEVERAL HUNDRED DOLLAR app, to nonverbal/nonspeaking people. Do better. Because this is a continued problem within the community. Lots of us are without apps that would truly benefit us because you don’t give a damn.

[meeb-motes]

HII HI HI GUYS !! Finally finished organizing our aac board for our iPad so here’s a tour of all of the folders ( we’ll expect the like folders inside a folder , happy to share those if anyone asks tho !! :3 )

Cw: cursing / swear words , just in case !

Yippeeeeee !!!

-Vee

[vixdesl]

AAC Homepage updated ^^

let us know if there's any folders you would like to see !

waiting for @dustymoji-aacs folders to add them hehe

[lazarusaac]

Add an aac tour in a reblog!!!

Feel free to include the outside of your device! Low tech and high tech appreciated

[nonspeakingkiku]

what kind of AAC do you use, my son is non speaking and is interested in one, but I have no idea where to start

Kiku uses lots of kinds of AAC!

Mostly Kiku's phone and ipad with multiple apps on them (LAMP, Prolquo2go, Proloquo4text, Touchchat, Proloquo, and TD Snap), communication boards with words and symbols on them, communication books, letterboards, picture cards, communication cards, emojis, texting and gestures and noises (think that is everything).

A good place to start is to see if you have or could get a tablet to use for AAC or some other form of robust AAC (robust means the user can say anything they want to with it. Robust AAC has all parts of speech, punctuation, a keyboard, and prestored messages.)

Most robust AAC apps are on apple but there are some on android as well.

PODD books are an example of a robust communication book.

Also keep in mind that many AAC users communicate in many ways (multimodal communication) and whatever you start with likely won't be the only way he communicates. Finding what works for a user takes time.

If your son has any other disabilities those should be taken into consideration (visual impairment, motor skill issues, ect) but also know that kids can often adapt pretty well and things like a smaller grid size or hiding a bunch of buttons should be a last resort if the user shows they need it. (Kiku uses multiple grid sizes).

If there aren't any real concerns about vision or motor skills then it's best to go with the largest grid size the user can see and touch.

AAC apps often go on sale twice a year for AAC awareness month and Autism awareness month).

Some info about some aac apps:

Kiku can only talk about apple based apps because those are what Kiku uses. Some offer trials or another way to access vocabulary to try it.

LAMP Words for life: 1 grid size (84 buttons/ 7 by 12 grid). $300 US Lamp is a heavily motor planning based aac app with a associate based organization method. LAMP was designed with autistic people in mind and can be helpful for those with motor disabilities or motor planning disabilities (apraxia). It has a small amount of high contrast symbols. LAMP is unique because it has only one spot for each word and it alerts you if you accidentally try to add a word again. That is because of the method behind LAMP (language accusition through motor planning). Bilingual options

Proloquo2go: multiple grid sizes, including custom grid sizes. $250 US Proloquo2go is a highly customizable aac app. A highly recommend grid size is 7 by 11. Custom grid sizes have to be organized by the user/person setting up the aac device for the user. Of of the more unique features of Proloquo2go is it has a typing feature. It lets you use the system keyboard to type in a large space. You can have it speak or show it to someone. Bilingual options

Touchchat: multiple grid sizes. $300 for Touchchat with Wordpower, a couple other options available. fairly customizable, multiple premade vocabularies. Options to buy multiple symbol sets. Editing is a bit more involved than with some other apps. Wordpower is the best option if going with Touchchat because they are the most robust vocabulary options. Option of high contrast symbols. Bilingual options.

Proloquo: 1 grid size (roughly 6 by 10). Subscription based, 3 options: $9.99 monthly, $99.99 yearly, or 1 to 5 year licenses. Comes with Proloquo Coach which helps parents learn about aac and how to teach aac. Proloquo has so many words. And a lot of room to add more. Might not be the best option for users with visual or motor impairments, but every user is different. Kiku highly recommends Proloquo because so many preprogramed words, with a good grid size, and access to Proloquo Coach.

TD Snap: multiple grid sizes. Subscription based: $9.99 a month. Multiple premade pagesets of varying sizes. Multiple vocabulary options. (Core first, Motor Plan, Aphasia, PODD ($4.99 a month), and Gateway ($4.99 a month). Large amount of high contrast symbols. TD Snap used to be a $50 one time purchase. But it recently became subscription based.

Proloquo4text: Text based with presaved phrases. Fairly customizable.

Speak for Yourself (S4Y): 1 grid size (120 buttons/8 by 15 grid) $300 US. another heavily motor planning based aac app, this one with no word more than 2 taps away. Words can only be added once, similar to LAMP. Unique features include babble (the ability to toggle between having a certian number of buttons showing or all of them), hold that thought (stores messages so you can say something else and then return to the previous message), and a history feature (shows you things that have been said using the app).

Hope this helps!

[cpunkwitch]

Anyway uh

Is anyone able to recommend some good (preferably free) AAC apps for Android/that might be in the Google Play store?

The old one we had only had one voice and we couldn't change it, we could only change the text we chose but the words still came out English with the same voice every time and it bothered us to the point we deleted it

We'd like to be able to speak French with our AAC as well as English, at least.

If there are any good AAC apps we could try it would help so much

Honestly would save so much of our social battery and spoons

[tuttleturtle]

I'm not exaggerating when I say I've put thousands of hours into customizing AAC. Not everyone *has* the ability to put in thousands of hours to customize their AAC. That's a lot of work. That's a lot of time. That's a lot of decisions to make and a lot of movement to do and a lot of ways to make things the way you need. And its the difference between communication access and not having it. And some of this is about what the starting point is - if we are able to start from something that is closer to what we need then that'll be better - but that assumes that AAC users need to be able to communicate about a wide variety of topics in a wide variety of situations. And things are not only not designed for adults, they're not providing what children need either. The vast majority of robust AAC apps don't have the word "gender". The vast majority of robust AAC apps don't give you a variety of ways to report abuse. The medical vocabulary is incredibly limited. Hobby related vocabulary is likely non-existent. That doesn't mean that robust AAC apps aren't a big huge important thing that helps so much with communication access! They do! But its so very limiting at the same time.

i think lots of people do not realize how long it takes to set up aac (low tech or high tech)

low tech requires lots of printing and cutting and laminating and hole punching and more cutting etc

and high tech requires hours of sitting with device and customizing not just settings but words, folders, layout etc

[the-aac-playhouse]

[zebulontheplanet]

What AAC app do you use? is it free? Would you recommend it?

Hello! I use many AAC apps, but no, they’re not free. Before I talk about the AAC apps I use, here’s some free ones that I’ve used.

Spoken, Speech assistant (only free on android), Leeloo, weavechat, cboard, and more I’m probably missing.

For the apps that I use, I use very expensive apps.

The app I use the most is Proloquo4text, which is $75. The second most used app I use is SpeakForYourself, which is $300. The third app I use which I’m still learning, is Proloquo2go, which is $250.

I like them a lot! Personally like proloquo4text and SpeakForYourself the most! SpeakForYourself is very nice and makes sense in my brain. They have a free trial if you’d like to try it out as well!

Hope this helps! Have a lovely day!

[meeb-motes]

here’s our disability folders so far :D !!! Def need to add more and organize more , ( specifically for physical disability folder that ones empty ,, and we need ideas for it/lh ) but yeah !!

[junkyrdsystem]

We're struggling to set up our aac. Has anyone got any advice to help us? We've only ever used low tech aac before

[lazarusaac]

My personal comparison of AAC apps I have used!

TD snap: My favorite, it is not free but does have a 60 day free trial! You can upload boards from their website onto your AAC, and also post, save, and switch home pages! Available offline!

Pricing: It has a free 60 day trial, but you can trial hop! You'd just have to download your boards onto your device, log out, make a new account, start a free trial, and re-upload your boards onto the app!

Customization: You can change buttons sizes, colors (any color possible), the text colors, boarder colors, rearrange the text box, move around the side bar, it's basically fully customizable! Including MP3 files!

Negs: Doesn't support gifs, hard to learn settings but makes sense after awhile! Only works on Ipad, not iphone.

Coughdrop: I used this for about 2 months on the free trial, and it is harder to customize but can make word art! Works on iphone and ipad!

Pricing: Costs money, not sure if you can trial hop!

Customization: A few colors to choose from, better voices IMO, supports gifs!

Negs: Images vanish after awhile if you dont back up, but backing up took me hours personally. Offline doesn't work with custom voices on ipads.

[aac-cabinet]

[thecoffeecrew404]

Reblog/Comment on this if your tumblr is about aac, if you use aac to make your posts, have any aac based social media's, or know of any creators who do

Namely where we can see the actual aac! Video, screenshots, resources links

Anything AAC

ALSO AAC DISCORD SERVERS/COMMUNITY CHATS PLEASE!!!

[zombblehh]

Any other AAC users of any kind have recommendations on how get use to using it more in real life?

Have very unreliable speech/ semi verbal and verbal shutdowns and am trying be okay with using it more while I need instead of being ashamed with myself. If anyone could tell me how get more confident would be appreciated :3 I have aac app and communication cards made

More info about my speech below cut if interested! 👇

Speech often exhausting and make me drool / spit as have bad control and my braces make me salivate more, which make worse. Almost every time talk I can never say what meant to say, even if I script heavily. I often cuss when don’t mean to and get seen as aggressive, just comes out. Also have very very bad issues with tone and get mistaken for having attitude. Also sometimes laugh when seems appropriate, and get called out for how fake it sound. (Which technically yes is fake but not in rude way, just seemed socially appropriate. And laugh did not come out as intended.) and when with neurotypical and sometime even other neurodivergent friends I say something that I thought fit humor of group and get met with weird looks or “oh..” and it very embarrassing. Also sometimes just hate talking in general.