Universally compatible with
all Apple devices
AACSpeechBuddy
Got an autistic kid? (Me too! Join the party!) If your child with autism doesn't speak then AACSpeechBuddy may be the iPad app you're looking for.
AACSpeechBuddy is a universal app. That means it runs great on iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad. It's an app that essentially speaks for your non-verbal child. More precisely, it gives them the ability to interact with the world by using speech. AAC is Augmentative and Alternative Communication, in case you're new to the terminology. Your child touches an icon and it talks. That's the basic premise behind AAC apps, also called communication apps, like this one.
But AACSpeechBuddy offers a couple things that make it stand out from the ever-growing crowd of AAC apps. No other AAC app gives you the ability to share your created, customized, personalized speech sets with others. Not only that, it also gives you the ability to load the speech set that specifically pertains to a certain child. WOW!
So what's a 'speech set'? It's an organized set of images with corresponding words/sentences. Think of them as custom digital PECS icons with text and audible speech.
Now, as a parent, you might be asking yourself why the ability to load and share speech sets matter. They matter because if you and your child's speech therapist can share speech sets on two different devices, such as between her iPad and your iPhone, the doors to collaboration are opened much wider. Her iPad stays with her. But your iPhone goes with you, and you are around your child much more often than is the speech therapist. And continual access to those speech tools on your iPhone is vital. And if your child uses an iPad as assistive technology in the classroom... Well, you get the point.
For SLPs (Speech Language Pathologists) I hardly need to mention the advantages of sharing and loading specific speech sets. If multiple therapists work with one beautiful autistic child they can each have access to the speech sets for that child. And, in the clinic, as soon as one child's speech session is done you can load the speech sets for your next client easily over Wi-Fi.
You should know that it's not possible to directly customize speech sets on your iPhone (or other iDevice). To do that you want to sign up for your free account on AACSpeech.com. I found their website to be a little awkward and counter-intuitive, but it did the trick. And the developers offer plenty of support via a Help Center.
Yes, while customizing your speech sets you can choose between an array of different voices. In fact you can set it up so that different voices are used within the same speech set if you like. A bit of a caveat here; If you don't have use of a computer you cannot customize speech sets.
The interface of AACSpeechBuddy itself is nicely organized, intuitive, and user-friendly. It doesn't take long to get accustomed to it. Another thing this app offers that it's AAC counterparts neglect is the option, with the touch of finger, to flip the screen over to reveal a large, easy-to-read, text of whatever the user has chosen to say with their speech set. In other words, if your autistic non-verbal teenager is in a busy deli trying to use his iPhone to communicate, but the environment is too noisy to hear anything, he can simply SHOW the screen and have you read it. It'd be nice if, on that same screen, you could type too. Maybe that's in AACSpeechBuddy's future?
I do have suggestions to help improve this app's usefulness. I'll just name a few I'd like to see.
- It'd be great if we could increase or decrease the size of images (the images down across the bottom are small even on the iPad).
- Text-to-speech within the app, or at least the ability to type a message, and specifically on the screen I just spoke about above.
- The ability to customize AACSpeechBuddy completely from within the app so I don't have to use their website. Though, to facilitate sharing, it may very well be a necessity to use their site.
- I'd like it if the voices were more natural sounding.
That said, I have to admit, this is a pretty sweet AAC app as is. And if sharing and loading speech sets is a MUST for you then look no further. AACSpeechBuddy is the app you've been searching for.
