SLP app Review: Pic Collage

Pic Collage is a great app for speech pathologists looking to make a simple communication board for a client.  This would be appropriate for children or adults as well.  This is a free picture collage app that can be very helpful in making a quick picture board for a non-verbal client.

There are several different options for backgrounds, colors and text.  Additionally, any pictures in the photo gallery can be used on the boards.  This is a tool that families could easily implement as well to support communication quickly, such as when they are out of the house and may want to provide a choice board in a new place that may not be programmed in an AAC device.  

Below is an example of a board that I made for a non-verbal 4 year old child for his favorite items.  The app is quick enough to operate that I made this in a session as a test to see if my client would respond to it and he loved choosing his favorite, music, on the new board.  

Other therapy uses for this app are to make boards for basic concepts, opposites, or matching.  You can easily save it and then have the clients use skitch to edit/draw on them.  There are many great uses for this app in addition to the obvious AAC potential.

This app is certainly not the best AAC option available, but it is free, fast and very user friendly, which is a big plus for many of the families who are a little less tech savvy and has lots of other possible uses for creative speech-language pathologists out there.  

Android App Review: AAC Talking Tabs

Here is another app that is a free AAC program available on the Android market: AAC Talking Tabs,  This is an AAC (Alternative Augmentative Communication) program that allows you to make icons for for words and phrases to give speech options to non-verbal or low-verbal patients.

This is not the best program, but it is useful for some.  Unfortunately, you cannot edit what tabs are shown or the icon for them, but you can add any pictures and change the text to anything you wish.  You can also alter the icon size, but it's a little unreliable for whether or not it will show the picture properly.  I have made a "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" page by adding lots of rows and only putting pictures where two at a time show, so with a little creativity you can find ways to make this useful.  I also changed all the tab colors to black so that my kids don't try to look at them when I want them to focus on the book related page.  If you have  a person who already uses a dynavox or similar device independently and can handle a 1" by 1" inch icon size this would work.

Since it's free I think that it is well worth the time to play around with it and see what you can come up with to make it work for you.  Also, for parents who can't afford an AAC device might find it helpful as well.  Unfortunately another drawback is that I have not found a way to upload pages, but again, if there is nothing else available it has potential to be useful.

Pros: Free, gives a voice to our clients who don't have an AAC device, offers the ability to upload pictures, good for small/simple communication boards
Cons: Not very customizable, diffcult to navigate when programming in edit mode, limited voice choices.

Give it a shot and comment on what you think of it and whether it was useful to you.

Speechie apps for Androids Review: Alexicom AAC for Android

I was inspired by fellow SLP to do some research into some of the Augmentative Alternative Communication (AAC) apps that are available on Android.  After looking at several of them I found a free app: Alexicom AAC for Android.  This is an interesting app for several reasons.  It comes with 33 pre-loaded boards ranging from an 8 button board for a child to much more complex board (as the one below) for independent for adults or teens.  It also allows you to create custom boards and change the number of columns, rows and the size of pictures on the board which is a big plus.  You can upload your own pictures, or go into the picture files that come with it (by going into the Alexicom picture files on your device rather than using the gallery).  This seems like is has some great potential for a very inexpensive AAC device the speech therapist or parents are able to put in some time for developing the right boards for the client.

Unfortunately, the pages that are linked are only indicated by the tiny blue triangle that you may notice in at the bottom right of some buttons, however, it is still one of the better options that is available at the present time.

Please let me know if you find that this has been useful for any of your clients.  If it works well we could start a resource for pre-made boards as it appears that they can be exported so that other SLPs aren't reinventing the wheel each time.