Universally compatible with
all Apple devices
Assistive Chat
In the autism and disabilities realm, Assistive Chat is clearly geared toward those who know how to spell and those who are looking for a no-frills way to communicate quickly and easily. There's nothing beautiful about this app, but it does the job well. It's designed to be simple and efficient, and with word predictability it does that.
The only aspects of Assistive Chat that give any visual indicators are the 3 buttons that represent Clear Textbox, Add to Favorites and Speak my Words. You won't find those labels on the buttons though. But you'll quickly figure out that in order to clear the textbox you need to tap the button with the image of the red circle with a diagonal cross through it. To add a phrase to your favorites you'll need to tap the button with the image of the gold star and plus symbol on it. And, of course, to hear your typed words spoken audibly you'll want to tap the biggest button on the app which is emblemized with a stereo speaker's woofer.
The voices used in Assistive Chat are the Acapella voices. They sound clear and natural. And you can adjust the speed of the voices to your preference. You get to choose from Heather, Ryan, and Kenny. Heather is the default voice, so I changed it to Ryan. He has a cool deep voice. But I noticed that when I exited the app, and later restarted it again, my voice was Heather. So if you want to use Kenny or Ryan you have to go into settings and change it each time you start the app... Otherwise you're gonna sound like a girl. The developers need to fix this little glitch so Assistive Chat remembers which voice you chose.
Assistive Chat uses Apple's own built-in keyboard. You can set it to speak each word as you type it, or you can make it stay quiet until you tap the big woofer.
The best feature about Assistive Chat is its ability to predict your words. It predicts your words well, too. And the app learns more and more about what words you like to use the more you use the app. That saves keystrokes and speeds up your typing significantly. If the developers want to take Assistive Chat to the next level they'll make it so the app can predict words based on common misspellings. As it is right now, if you accidentally type "teh" the app has no idea that you meant to type "the".
When you first open the app you'll see the words "Please Enter Text." You'll need to tap the Clear Textbox button because if you just start typing a word your word will be appended directly onto "Text." This app could save you a step if "Please Enter Text" disappeared with the first keystroke. Since the text cursor is blinking up there, you're led to believe that will happen. But it doesn't.
There's one glaring omission from Assistive Chat. I noticed it right away when the app mispronounced my son's name. We spell his name B-R-A-D-E-N and the app assumes it rhymes with "maiden." In fact we pronounce it "Brad-in." There's no way to correct Assistive Chat unless we deliberately misspell Braden's name. The app needs a feature under settings that allows you to manually correct mispronunciations.
When the developers remedy the few issues I mentioned Assistive Chat will truly be simple and efficient. Until then, I'll be waiting with anticipation.
