Product Hits & Misses: Keeping the iPad Audible (and safe)

Can you hear me now?
Can you hear me now?
Can you hear me now?
- Verizon wireless commercial

When we look back at the summer of 2012, I think we may remember it as the summer of the toilet training -- and of the iPad.

I threatened way back when to do a bunch of product reviews around Joy's iPad equipment and apps.  I naively figured that I'd work my way down Joy's list of apps and tell you all about them.  But at the pace I'm blogging versus the pace we're adding apps -- yeah.  It's not going to happen quite like that.  What I decided to do instead was to create a separate page that will represent a running list of her apps, with notes (see the new tab at the top of the blog!)  As well as being a good way to share, I figure it will be a good record for me, too.    I'm also resurrecting my "Product Hits & Misses" category, one I haven't used in quite a while.  The old ones are chock-full of useful information though, even across several years' time.

On to the product reviews!

Back when Joy's speech therapist was evaluating iPad technology with Joy, but before I'd had any chance to explore the iPad myself, she noted a concern about the iPad's volume levels.  She wanted Joy to be able to use the iPad to speak above a noisy classroom if necessary -- and indeed, the iPad's speakers are not among its most highly-praised features.  So she recommended that we look into external speakers.

When we did so, we found that most external speakers connected to the iPad via cords, which absolutely wasn't going to mesh with our active, tough-on-equipment young lady.  There was one product, though, that combined external speakers with a tough-looking case, complete with carrying handle: the iAdapter 2 from AMDi.  It's a pricey product, at $265.  The reviews looked good, though, and for what we were trying to do it was about the only reasonable option. So we pitched it, together with the iPad and ProLoQuo2Go and a couple other apps, for funding via Wisconsin's Medicaid waiver for children's long term support.  And we got the whole shebang.

The iAdpater encases the iPad in a 2-part assembly that fastens together with nine screws.  The speakers sit behind the iPad.  The case has openings for the front and back cameras and the iPad recharging plug, while the the opening for the Home button has a removable sliding cover.  (Joy figured out how to slide it open and get to the Home button pretty quickly.)  The case covers the iPad's volume controls, offering instead a 3-position volume switch, Hi/Lo/Off.  The case offers its own Sleep button that sits atop the iPad's Sleep button; the iPad's rotation-lock / mute switch is not accessible without unscrewing the case.

For the most part, we were pleased with the iAdapter sound quality.  We found that we seldom wanted to turn the iPad's internal volume higher than about three-quarters; Joy generally prefers the iAdapter volume switch set to "Hi."  We did run into at least one situation where an app wouldn't play well with the iAdapter -- in the Whizzit 1-2-3 counting app, some of the spoken instructions were inaudibly soft, while the rest of the directions and sounds were fine.  When the iPad was removed from the iAdapter, the problem disappeared.

Of my two other concerns with the iAdapter, one is an issue that affects all users, and the other is more specific to Joy.

The universal issue has to do with the fact that the iAdapter itself needs charging, separately from the iPad.  It comes with a cord and a wall-plug adapter for the purpose, which is great.  However, there's no indicator to let the user know how far the battery has run down, or how close the iAdapter is to being recharged.  We've never run it all the way out, so I don't know what would happen.  Does the iAdapter just go silent, and would the cause be obvious?   Meanwhile, we learned that we couldn't charge both the iAdapter and the iPad in a single standard 2-socket wall outlet: the wall-plugs are too big to both fit simultaneously.  You'll need either a powerstrip or two wall outlets close together.

The other issue is more Joy-specific though it applies to other kids like her:  girlfriend is tough on equipment. When Joy gets frustrated, stuff goes flying.  The iPad in its iAdapter case has gone flying down the stairs a couple of times, along with various lesser flings, since we got it at the beginning of the year.  Soon we began to hear little rattles within the case.  When I opened it up, I discovered that the inside of the case isn't as tough-looking as the outside.  The iPad is essentially held in place by slender plastic tabs, and several of these tabs had begun cracking off.  After several flinging incidents, the tabs had crumbled enough that the iAdapter case began to rub the wrong way against the volume control, causing the volume to suddenly mute at inopportune moments -- a development that Joy did not appreciate.

The tech support fellow I corresponded with at AMDi was extremely helpful.  He answered e-mail promptly, did a fine job of diagnosing the volume issue, and set things up so that we could send the iAdapter in for free repairs even though technically the flinging damage was not covered by warranty (and if it happens again, we're on our own.)  He also filled me in on the design principle behind the relatively-fragile internal support tabs.  Apparently they function like crumple-zones on a car, designed to absorb impact at their own cost in order to protect the cargo.  Of course you'd rather have your car-body crumple in an accident rather than your own body!  Turns out that both with iAdapters and with cars, the safety/protection features are secondary functions, and the crumple-zone protection is a one-shot affair.

Before I packed up our iAdapter to send in for repairs, we needed something to keep Joy's iPad usable and safe in the interim.  After a bit of surfing around, I settled on the SuperShell from M-Edge ($34.99).

There are several similar products out there, apparently.  The SuperShell is made of the same kind of material as Crocs footwear. It doesn't have any amplification qualities, though it does have a little cut-out for the iPad's speaker.  There are also cut-outs for the cameras and the charger plug.  The volume control and sleep button are accessed via partial cut-outs; the rotation lock/mute button is covered.  To install the SuperShell, just stretch it around the iPad and it springs tight.

What really sold us on the SuperShell (besides the awesome hot-pink color option) was this video, wherein the interviewer flings a SuperShell-clad iPad into walls and the floor of an exhibit hall:

 

The SuperShell really does work just the way it does in the video.  Joy has tested it, repeatedly.  It bounces.

The one criticism we have so far is that the cutout for the charger plug doesn't really let you get the plug in and out, so you have to pull the SuperShell off that side of the iPad to do the plugging in. But that's easy to do.

After the SuperShell arrived and we sent off the iAdapter for repairs, we learned something interesting.  The iPad on its own was actually PLENTY loud.  I'm not sure what the concern was in the first place.  We actually find ourselves repeatedly diving for Joy's iPad to turn the darn volume DOWN (she has become adept at adjusting it loud-where-she-likes-it.)

And the SuperShell is so cute, and we feel confident that the shell itself is not going to break when flung...

We actually never did re-install the iAdapter.  We probably ought to find another good home for it.

You Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover

The unprepossessing back of a turtle escaping through a mud puddle

The spectacular undercarriage of that same turtle

Rose and I have read two excellent young-adult novels in recent weeks: Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper, and Wonder by R.J. Palacio.  (Some parts she read for herself, but mostly we did them as read-alouds). Both books feature 5th-grade student characters, a girl named Melody in Out of My Mind and a boy named Auggie in Wonder.  Rose will be a 5th-grader herself this fall!  Each 5th-grade protagonist has a strong family with two parents and a sister.  Each is intellectually ahead of the pack when it comes to their school peers.

And each has physical differences that shape how they interact with the world, and how the world reacts to them.

Out of My Mind was recommended to me via Partners in Policymaking.  Melody, who narrates in first person throughout the novel, has cerebral palsy.  She has a photographic memory, she's addicted to words, she can control an electric wheelchair, she can point and tap with her thumbs, but she can't walk or talk or feed herself -- so the world sees only the disability, and only Melody has access to the rich inner life of her own mind.  At least at first... When you put an electronic communication device at the disposal of a girl who knows how to read, you can expect that some amazing things will happen!

Melody's school experience, though, is just ugly.  She's been shunted off to a segregated "special-needs" room since she started school, and only in fifth grade is the school beginning to experiment with "inclusion" classes, where everyone (students and teachers both) completely underestimates Melody and her "special needs" classmates.

One aspect of Out of My Mind that hit me particularly hard was Melody as Cassandra-prophetess, when she sees something that's about to happen or in progress of happening that she needs to warn someone about -- and nobody can understand her or even get that they're supposed to be listening.

The story also brought back strong memories of my experiences on high-school quiz team.  (No further details about the novel forthcoming here; you'll have to read it to find out how this fits.)  My junior year, I was the only girl and the only junior on our high school's state championship Hi-Q team, a high-profile televised experience.  Our come-from-behind win in the last two minutes of the championship round was about the most exciting bit of my entire high school career.  It was fascinating to look back at my own experiences through the lens of Melody's adventures.

Rose was interested in Melody, and made a few tentative connections to Joy and her iPad.  But it was Auggie's story in Wonder that really grabbed her.  August Pullman gets to start prep school in grade 5 after a childhood of homeschooling through facial surgeries and medical fragility.  A stew of genetic irregularities has left him with a face to which people react with disgust and ridicule.  It makes for a challenging 5th grade year.  Fortunately Auggie, like Melody, is clever and has a strong sense of humor.

I think Rose was particularly captivated by Auggie's story for several reasons.  One, the author (a first-time novelist!) really captured the rhythm of middle-school dialog.  It sounded like people Rose knows.  She also appreciated the current pop-culture references (Diary of a Wimpy Kid!  Justin Bieber!)  She also liked that Wonder wasn't solely narrated by Auggie -- you also got to hear parts of the story told by other kids from Auggie's school, plus his big sister and a couple of her friends.  Oh yes, Auggie has a big sister!  So Rose got to hear big-sis Olivia describe the family as a solar-system where her brother is the sun and the rest of the family orbits him and his needs.  (To what extent is that us?)  She got to hear Olivia talk genetics and how she carries a gene for part of Auggie's condition that might affect her own child-bearing decisions... a new idea for Rose, and something we could assure her was not part of her situation.  But there were some genetic-science words introduced that have relevance to our story too, like "mosaicism."

I liked that neither story set up their 5th-grade protagonists as saints.  For the most part, they resisted the temptation to make everything too OK at the end.  And they both did a great job of weaving the end of the story with threads that had been introduced at the beginning.

I had to wonder, though -- I don't think that it's a coincidence that both characters were written to have above-average intelligence and were able to outshine their typical peers.  Melody could demonstrate (given the right technology) that she didn't belong in the "retard room" as her typically-developing classmates cruelly called it.  Auggie's academic performance could withstand the scrutiny of mean-spirited parents who didn't think a kid with a face like his could possibly be worthy of their precious (and deliberately non-inclusion) prep school.

Anyone got any good recommendations for novels with protagonists whose disabilities affect their intellect?

Meanwhile, on the drive home from the annual Memorial Day sojourn in the Upper Peninsula (whence cometh the turtle pics), Rose started to write a story based on herself and Joy, inspired by Wonder and Out of My Mind.  Maybe I'll be recommending her opus to you one of these days.

Joy's iPad, iPad's Joys

When I first heard what Apple had named their new tablet-technology, back when it came out a couple of years ago, I chortled along with the wags who made Kotex jokes.  What company in their right mind would give their product a name that sounded as if it belonged in the "that-time-of-the-month" aisle?

OK, fine, nobody's laughing anymore, and that includes me (except at myself for my skepticism).  Two years later I'm happy to admit: the iPad is an amazing piece of technology, and Joy is reaping the benefits in a big way.

As long-time readers of this blog know, we've been making fits-and-starts at picture-communication with Joy for quite a while.  We have lots of little laminated photos and icons that we velcro-ed on to various pages or sequences for Joy to grab and hand to us to indicate choice-making or to tell us something.  We used the same velcroed items or laminted sheets of icons in a GoTalk4 where we could record a message or word and Joy could push the right picture to make the device "say" that thing.  We even spent a couple of months of regular appointments at the Communication Aids and Systems Clinic (CASC) at the Waisman Center in Madison to see if Joy would take to a more sophisticated programmable talk-by-icon-choice computer device with a touch-screen from the Prentke Romich Company (PRC) -- I believe it was a SpringBoard Lite.  Every one of the approaches showed some promise, but had drawbacks.  The laminated photos and icons, for example, were highly desirable in and of themselves as "stimmy" objects, which interfered with what their communication-meaning was supposed to be.  The GoTalk wasn't particularly flexible compared to computer-based products, and also became an object of desire in and of itself -- she wanted to use it as a noisy-toy.  The PRC device, she wasn't showing nearly enough interest and progress to be able to justify Medicaid card-service funding (two-and-a-half thou'worth).  So we sort of went into a holding pattern for a while with the GoTalk and velcro-icons, at least at home, and things stayed that way for a while.

Fast-forward two years, and much has changed.  We've had some developmental surging, along with a new funding stream via the Children's Long-Term Support MA waiver that allowed us to purchase an iPad and apps for Joy with a significantly less stringent burden-of-proof and paperwork (and at lower cost than the SpringBoard Lite as well).

And oh, how she has taken to it!  The iPad touch-screen is somehow just the right thing at just the right time.

Our basic setup is an iPad2 (16GB with WiFi), with an AMDI iAdapter2 protective speaker box (which I'll have to review in a separate post).  The most important app is ProLoQuo2Go ($189.99), a communication program in which the user taps labelled icons to get a synthesized voice to "say" the word or phrase.  You can set the icons/words up in the categories you want, and control how many appear on the screen (hence their size as well), and take or import your own photos or select from a sizeable collection of pre-programmed icons.

What a technological leap forward!  For a brief comparison, in order to put a photo on the GoTalk, I had to:

1. take the photo
2. import the photo from camera to computer
3. re-size the photo
4. print the photo (at some cost in printer supplies)
5. cut the photo to size physically
6. laminate the photo (more supplies)
7. trim again
8. add velcro (still more supplies)
9. record the right word in my voice, or get Rose to do it, on the GoTalk

To make an icon in ProLoQuo on the iPad, the only supplies I need are: the iPad.

1. I tell ProLoQuo to make a new icon (easy tap-and-type process)
2. I type in a label for it to say
3. I indicate whether I want to use an icon from the collection, or use a photo (existing or take a new one)
4. If I choose to take a new one, the iPad camera launches and I can snap the shot, and re-size it right there.

And voila, new photo icon created.

So now when Joy wants to watch a video, she can tell me which one by tapping a photo of the video cover. She is making real choices from a field of 25 icons/images, and has mastered the tiny 1/4-inch "Back" control icon that navigates between levels among the folders.

My beefs with ProLoQuo2Go are minor so far.  I miss the ability to record my own voice, or Rose's, and I don't always like the inflection of the synthesizer, particularly in phrases or sentences.  (At least one can override any given word's pronunciation with a new phonetic concoction of one's own -- I had to do that with the Baby Mozart video icon, for example, for which the default pronunciation sounded like "Baby Moe-ZHAR.")

The biggest challenge for Joy so far in using ProLoQuo has been less about understanding and navigating, and more about us keeping up with her.  At home we only have a few useful categories for making choices (songs, videos, LeapPad cartridges).  There are other categories for school -- occupational thereapy, classroom choices, lunch/sharing-time.  We need to give her more.

Meanwhile, though, there's no doubt that she gets it.  One day not long ago, I was puttering in the kitchen while Joy played in the living room right around snack time.  Suddenly she came running, jumping up and down expectantly.  I led her back to the living room to grab the iPad so she could tell me.  And there lay the iPad on the couch, open to the "snack" category within ProLoQuo.

She had told me.

I just hadn't been close enough to hear.

-----

I'll have a lot more to say about the iPad and the various apps we've been using so far, because I know this is information that's important to share!  For now, I'll link to a couple of useful lists of iPad apps that are excellent starting points:

iPad Apps for Communication, Learning, & Fun (pdf) -- by Amy Nelson, Kristi Otto and Connie Biksacky, presented at an Autism Society of Greater Madison April mini-conference

iPad Apps & Resources for People with Autism: Reviews, Links, Prices (Google spreadsheet) -- by Shannon des Roches Rosa, Corina Becker, and Jordan Sadler -- a parent, an adult with autism, and an SLP -- updated frequently