Predictable

Predictable is designed to be used primarily as an augmentative and alternative communication app (AAC), giving a voice to your autistic child who can't use their own natural voice. And the app gives you a choice of 9 different voices plus the ability to adjust the speech rate, pitch, and pronunciation. Predictable may be most useful for people with autism who are youths up through adults, but that's just my judgment. And I say that based on the fact that typing what you want to say is a big part of this app's functionality. In reality it depends on each individual's developmental level, of course.

The ability of Predictable to accurately predict the word you've just begun typing is incredible. And that saves a lot of time. But it's also quick to predict your NEXT word based on the word you just typed. Nice.

The Predictable app for iPad offers lots of features and controls. You can send email from the app and you can send SMS, aka text messages (only with iPhone version). You can also change the background of the app, use your own avatar, and more. Predictable is really up with the times even giving you the ability to directly update your Facebook status. Wow! I have to applaud the developers, Therapy Box, for including people with autism and other disabilities into the popular world of social networking! Inclusion is very important and Therapy Box recognizes that!

You get to choose between 3 keyboard setups; QWERTY, ABCD, and high frequency which is arranged based on the frequency with which common keys are used. There is a nice distance between the keys on each keyboard which is great for those with fine motor challenges. And the keyboard looks really nice too. Also, I can't stress enough how important it is that you have a choice of 3 keyboard layouts. People who know how to type will likely prefer the QWERTY. That's the regular, common keyboard. Somebody who doesn't know how to type may prefer the ABCD, which is arranged alphabetically. And the high frequency keyboard is likely the one to be used by people who use Predictable in scanning mode.

   

Scanning mode? This is a mode that is generally used by someone with great motor skills challenges. Scanning works by highlighting each of the key working sections sequentially one at a time. When the highlight is on the area you need, press your switch or touch the screen, depending on how you have Predictable setup. The app has lots of settings for scanning.

You can use switches? That's right - Predictable supports external switch access! Though I'm not able to test this feature, it's fantastic that external switches are supported. This is huge in making the app more accessible for certain individuals who may be more severely impacted by autism or other disabilities.

Predictable does everything but predict the weather. Still many people will find it valuable to be able to hold down a key to repeat it, see a text cursor so they know where the next typed letter or phrase will show up, and hear a click when typing. Adding a caps lock key would be fantastic too. Those are all very minor things though. If Therapy Box wanted to really make this thing incredible they'd need to have it predict commonly misspelled words.

This app is incredibly useful, functional, and hip. In fact, there's more to it that I didn't get a chance to mention! I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a good communication app. Predictable is in a class of its own!

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