More Than Words: Understanding Social Communication

Ask any parent of a child with an expressive communication disorder, and they'll tell you that social communication is often the most difficult challenge. This is especially true for autistic children who actually experience the world differently than "the rest of us."

To understand your child's social communication challenges, listen to Lisa Daxer. Lisa is a biomedical engineering major at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. She is also autistic.

Lisa refers to "the rest of us" as "neurotypicals." She describes what happens when an autistic person encounters neurotypicals in her blog Report from an Alien Brain. For a great summary, check out the NPR article Autism Gives Woman An 'Alien View' Of Social Brains.

We really encourage you to read the NPR article, so we'll just offer you this teaser quote from Lisa Daxer: "We all avoid different things. I avoid polyester clothing. They avoid talking about death."

If you have a TapToTalk idea or story you'd like us to share with other TapToTalk users, please email us at blog@taptotalk.com.

The TapToTalk Team
www.taptotalk.com
blog@taptotalk.com

TapToTalk AAC for Angelman Syndrome

Angelman Syndrome (AS) is a neuro-genetic disorder. Symptoms include severe developmental delays, seizures, sleep disorders, movement and balance problems, an unusually happy disposition, and severe speech impairment.

Children with AS have the same need (and right) to communicate as do all other kids. We especially like the Angelman Syndrome Foundation's slogan: "I may not speak, but I have much to say." We have heard from many parents of children with AS that they have had great success using TapToTalk as their AAC solution. Most tell us TapToTalk was recommended by other parents, and we are proud to be able to help them help their kids communicate.

Children with AS may be misdiagnosed with autism or cerebral palsy. Regardless of cause, TapToTalk provides portable, customizable, socially acceptable and affordable AAC for children with expressive language problems.

Here are some resources for AS:

Angelman Syndrome Foundation - United States
Foundation for Angelman Syndrome Therapeutics - United States
Angelman Syndrome Association - Australia
ASSERT - United Kingdom
Canadian Angelman Syndrome Society - Canada
Angelman New Zealand - New Zealand

If you have a TapToTalk idea or story you'd like us to share with other TapToTalk users, please email us at blog@taptotalk.com.

The TapToTalk Team
www.taptotalk.com
blog@taptotalk.com

Tips and Tricks: Using the TapToTalk ID and Password

Every TapToTalk you create has a unique ID and password. In this post, we'll explain why that's so, where to find them, and how to use them.

TapToTalk is not just the name of our product. A TapToTalk is a collection of albums. Most of our users create this collection for a particular child. Regardless of what the collection means to you, this collection is unique in the TapToTalk system.

In order to identify your collection -- your TapToTalk -- from others, TapToTalk Designer assigns each TapToTalk a unique 10 digit ID number.

You also give the TapToTalk a password. We recommend that you use a different password from your TapToTalk Designer account.

We are often asked why there is a different ID and password for each TapToTalk. Why not just use the Designer password? The reason is so you can allow anyone to access your child’s albums on the Web App or the iPhone/iPad App without necessarily allowing them to change the content. Also, Pro and Agency users have more than one TapToTalk in their account, so each needs a different unique identifier and password.

The separate TapToTalk ID and Password makes the TapToTalk system more secure. For example, a professional can create a set of albums for a child, but they may have other TapToTalks for other children. They can tell the parent or the teacher at school the TapToTalk ID and Password to either log into the Web App or configure the TapToTalk app for iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. The parent/teacher can then run the content only for the proper child.

If you aren’t sure what your TapToTalk ID is, just click on the TapToTalks link in the upper left hand corner of TapToTalk Designer. The ID is in parenthesis next to the TapToTalk’s name. The ID and password are also displayed every time you publish that TapToTalk.

The instructions for logging into the Web App or configuring the iPhone/iPad App with the 10 digit TapToTalk ID and password are found in their respective user’s guides in the online help of TapToTalk Designer. Unless you change the password, you only do this setup once.

If you have a TapToTalk idea or story you'd like us to share with other TapToTalk users, please email us at blog@taptotalk.com.

The TapToTalk Team
www.taptotalk.com
blog@taptotalk.com

Halloween and Your Non-Verbal Child

A Halloween tip from Tammy Lessick, TapToTalk Mom and author of the AutismLearningFelt blog:

The holidays present challenges for us. My son likes to go Trick O’ Treating. He is still young enough for it, but will soon outgrow it (age wise anyways). The problem we face is that he likes to go into everyone’s house. Also, approaching a lot of strangers' houses means curious looks when my nonverbal, autistic son doesn’t say anything, just holds out his bag and makes noises. Last year, we had his Nintendo and TapToTalk program to help with that. I uploaded a Halloween picture for him to touch that said "Trick O’Treat."

We'd add a picture that says "Boo!" And the ever-popular, "Thank you."

You'll find a few Halloween pictures in the Holidays category of the TapToTalk Picture Library. There's also a picture for "thank you" in the Widgit Samples category. And you can always use your own pictures in TapToTalk as well.

Happy Halloween!

If you have a TapToTalk idea or story you'd like us to share with other TapToTalk users, please email us at blog@taptotalk.com.

The TapToTalk Team
www.taptotalk.com
blog@taptotalk.com

Apraxia Resource Center of Connecticut "Unlocking Voices" Conference October 22

The Apraxia Resource Center of Connecticut has been a great resource for families of children diagnosed with CAS. TapToTalk is proud to support them, and publish this guest post.

The Apraxia Resource Center of Connecticut (ARCC) is a statewide 501(c) non-profit organization formed by parents of children diagnosed with childhood Apraxia of speech (CAS).  The organization began as an informal parent led support group. As the needs of the families grew, we decided to incorporate and formalize our goals and objectives in order to provide better programs and stronger support systems for families and professionals helping children with CAS.

Our mission is to provide each child affected by CAS the best opportunities and resources to develop meaningful speech.

Our goals include:

1. Provide education, support and networking opportunities for families affected by CAS and to the professionals that treat them.
2. Increase awareness of Apraxia in our communities.
3. Help school-based and private speech therapists gain a better understanding of the best methods for treating children with CAS.
4. Assist local families in meeting the overwhelming financial demands of providing adequate speech therapy for their children with apraxia.

We are hosting our first conference, Unlocking Voices on October 22, 2010 at the Holiday Inn in North Haven.  Over 15 area experts will speak on topics ranging from reading development, becoming a talker, executive functioning, PROMPT, using music in speech therapy and developing IEP goals for children with Apraxia.

For conference information or to register, please e-mail Michele at apraxiact@yahoo.com.

Visit us at our web site and on Facebook.

If you have a TapToTalk idea or story you'd like us to share with other TapToTalk users, please email us at blog@taptotalk.com.

The TapToTalk Team
www.taptotalk.com
blog@taptotalk.com