SPEAKall! A PrAACtical Research-to-Practice Project

It is a pleasure to welcome back Dr. Oliver Wendt, who graciously agreed to give us an update on the SPEAKall! app designed by faculty and students at Purdue University. You can see the original post here. There is a proud tradition of AAC research at Purdue, and we’re delighted to see that their latest prAACtical contributions.

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We wrote the first announcement about SPEAKall!, a therapy app for AAC in autism and developmental disorders, over a year and a half ago. SPEAKall! was originally created by the Purdue Program for Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) in conjunction with the Purdue AAC Research Lab and the Purdue Speech-Language Clinic. SPEAKall! is specifically designed to start AAC intervention in prelinguistic learners. It has a very intuitive and “sensory-friendly” interface that reduces cognitive load, which makes it ideal for individuals with severe, non-verbal autism or severe developmental speech and language delay. SPEAKall! is easy to use when teaching an initial symbol vocabulary and/or the process of constructing simple sentences. The initial free version of SPEAKall! was quickly adopted by the AAC and autism communities which resulted in a demand for support and advanced features that could no longer be delivered from a basic research program at Purdue. Fortunately, Purdue was able to devote further resources towards the commercialization of the app, and with help from the Purdue Foundry, the Purdue Trask Award, and the Purdue Innovation and Commercialization Center, a start-up company was formed by the name of SPEAKMODalities, LLC. SPEAKMODalities is devoted to continue developing significantly improved versions of SPEAKall! and related future products in conjunction with the Purdue AAC research lab and in close collaboration with users, clinicians, and caretakers. SPEAKall! is used during home intervention and AAC parent training as part of a currently ongoing study at Purdue.

Just recently, SPEAKMODalities launched SPEAKall! 2.0, a significantly improved new version, that is still a free trial but also offers in-app purchase options for premium features. The improvements include:

• Significantly enhanced look and feel interface
• Switching between activity sheets while in play mode
• Paged activity sheets with more than 10 graphic symbols in play mode
• Synthetic voices
• Adding literacy labels to symbols
• Learner profile settings that include locking mode selection, “one-touch” or “drag & drop” play mode selection, voice selection, switchable symbol order reset (random or fixed), and selection of activity sheets on a per learner basis
• Advanced media management and organization functions for grouping media
• Basic tracking of usage and learning statistics
• Advanced media creation capability
• Streamlined activity sheet construction
• Manage multiple learners on a single device
• Per learner ordering of symbols and activity sheets
• Free trial version that supports 20 graphic symbols, 2 activity sheets, and 1 learner profile
• In app purchase that allows unlimited symbols, unlimited activity sheets, and 2 learner profiles
• In app purchase that allows unlimited symbols, unlimited activity sheets, and unlimited learner profiles.

Take a look at SPEAKall! in action.

SPEAKMODalities has also developed a new YouTube channel with instructional videos demonstrating intervention ideas, check out: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNq-ywgu0ESwLawPDvhGUOg?feature=watch . Please continue to send your thoughts and feedback to SPEAKMODalities as students and faculty are constantly improving this app. You can e-mail us at info@speakmod.com and visit us on Facebook.