A Communications Breakthrough – The “Mid Tech” Movement

By Glen Dobbs
Founder and President, ProxTalker.com LLC

Communication instruments for non-communicative children used to come in two forms, High Tech and Low Tech. The problem with low tech devices is that the range of words available to the child is limited. Full sentences cannot be formed and even some key words may be missing from the device.

High tech devices come with another serious problem – they’re often too cumbersome for the child to use. Having a user friendly device that provides an unlimited range of words while easily allowing the child to form full and properly formed verses is key to facilitating communication. We could not find this in the high tech or the low tech range, hence the invention of the Logan ProxTalker, named for its first user, my son Logan. This device has the range and flexibility of high tech and while not being so complex to use as to be counterproductive.

The ProxTalker is water resistant, disaster resistant and more. Yet its greatest attribute, the reason why we invented it in the first place, is the ease and range of the communications it facilitates. Here is more about the ProxTalker and the “Mid Tech Movement” in communication devices.

About the Mid Tech Movement in Communicative Devices

AAC is an acronym for Alternative Augmentative Communication. This refers to technological (or non-technological) devices used to enable functional communication for people with communication difficulties. These ‘devices’ can range in complexity between simple choices of pictures (a choice board that one points to an object of interest) to state of the art technological marvels such as computers which track the movement of your eyes to point a mouse – in the event that you are unable to operate a mouse with your hands.

There is so much innovation going on in this technological arena and it is very inspiring to know that the quality of life for people with communication difficulties is on the rise. Many people with autism have little or no expressive verbal ability. While they may have pretty good receptive ability, that is, they can hear and understand – their ability to say anything intelligible can be very frustrating to say the least. My son Logan is one such person.

In a world of Alternative Augmentative Communication it is interesting to contemplate that the industry is largely segregated into two categories, High Tech and Low Tech. The low tech devices range from a one button one word device such as a ‘Cheap Talk’ to the more complicated ones with thirty two pictures and 16 levels, with everything in between. These devices all have appropriate applications for people with certain physical and/or intellectual challenges but the continuous march of technological development goes on.

The High Tech devices are generally based largely on existing computer technology. They are usually a touch screen with a menu-driven system for selecting categories, then words. Companies such as Dynavox, Tobii ATI, Words+, and Cyrano produce such devices. Some systems use a very nifty linguistic system referred to in the industry as MinSpeak or Unity. This system allows a user to get to a large vocabulary with a very small number of choices (keystrokes) – it can be difficult to learn for some but for others it is worth taking a look at. It is good for people with limited motor ability or other access issues to increase time efficiency of communication. Companies that use this approach include Prentke Romich Company and Saltillo.

These high tech devices range in size from palm pilots to full size laptops – in some cases the software can even be run on Smart Boards (large projection screen computer touch screens – in case you have not seen one) for people with low vision. Some autistic people can use these devices readily – but for others, it can be a big struggle or simply not a suitable choice. Severe behaviors such as throwing objects off tables or into water can be detrimental to the device and the complexity of the steps required to form a sentence or sentence fragment can be too cumbersome for some.

Devices in the ‘low tech’ category come in many sizes and shapes. Most of them employ an onboard microphone to record a sound to be associated with a button or location to press. When the button or location is pressed they play back the recorded sound. Many of these devices have a number of buttons or locations, for example, the “Go Talk 20” has 32 square buttons and so up to 20 recorded messages can be accessed. Many of these devices have multiple ‘levels’, that is, the user can remove the picture overlay and replace it with a different one and turn a switch to change ‘level’ so the new overlay’s pictures are now active. In this way, more words can be accessed – but the overlay that was just removed is not accessible at the same time.

These types of devices usually require help from a teacher or parent for the user to access the different levels due to the need to properly load the overlay into the device and select the correct level associated with that overlay – a task not usually performable by a user of such a machine. Some of these types of devices have the ability to employ switch access and scanning. This is used when the user can not actually press the button due to physical inability to do so. In this case, each button or location has a small light (LED) which can light up and scroll across each location at an adjustable rate. The user activates a switch when the light is on the desired location so as to activate it and play the associated sound. This is a very handy feature and you can see that having more locations is better in this application. It is still necessary for a care giver to change the levels in this case.

When considering devices for my son Logan, who is autistic and nonverbal, I had to take into consideration all these different elements of the different devices that were available. Logan was using the PECS system to communicate. PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) is a non-technology system that uses picture squares to communicate. It was developed by Andy Bondy and Lori Frost of Pyramid Educational Systems and is widely used as a communication starting point for many nonverbal autistic people. When we had an AAC evaluation for Logan it was determined that he should stay on the PECS system because there was not an appropriate machine for Logan on the market at that time.

Many people on the more severe autism spectrum find transition from PECS to AAC to be difficult for a variety of reasons. Some kids are quite destructive to objects. For example, Logan would often throw things into the toilet, tub or any body of water – this is a problem for electronic technology. He would also take the TV remote and smash it against the tile floor and laugh out loud as the parts and pieces scattered in all directions. Our TV was mounted inside a wooden structure and bolted to the wall. There was Plexiglas over the windows and locks on all the doors as well as alarm systems to catch him if he tried to escape from the house. He presented quite a safety challenge. Any device for Logan would have to take all these issues into account at the design phase.

When we designed the Logan ProxTalker we decided that the device should not ever break – even if it got wet. It should be able to be run over by a car. It should have a very long battery life, and it should be very easy to use and very easy to customize. We met our own expectations on all these points. The ProxTalker is very durable; it is water resistant’ it runs on four C batteries for about six months. It is very easy to use and very easy to program and customize. Now there is finally a device appropriate for Logan.

Glen Dobbs can be reached at 860-283-0966, email info@proxtalker.com or visit www.proxtalker.com.