Effectiveness of Communication Devices Pertaining to Students with Communication Impairments
Date
2013-12-16
Authors
Wilkins, Sarah
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Worldwide access
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Abstract
ABSTRACT Effectiveness of Communication Devices Pertaining to Students with Communication Impairments
Sarah Wilkins
Director: Kathy Whipple, PhD
Speech generating devices (SGD) allow individuals with verbal disabilities to speak through the use of an augmentative device. With the introduction of the iPad/iPod® devices, these individuals have greater accessibility to speech generating devices. This review evaluated the results reported in ten studies that used the iPad/iPod® with children or adults in need of augmentative communication. The results suggest that iPad/iPod® usage and the SGD most often employ the Proloquo2go® application. In addition, those children with a diagnosis of autism were most likely to show positive results from the use of these devices. Of the 31 subjects in the ten studies, 74% showed improvement. Eighteen of the twenty children diagnosed with autism were reported to have improved through the use of the iPad/iPod® SGD. Those studies that followed the children for the most contact time tended to have the most positive results.