CoughDrop vs Weave Chat AAC

CoughDrop is a simple, modern AAC communication and support tool that empowers individuals and the teams around them. It is a full-featured communication app built for individuals with autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, Angelman syndrome, Rett syndrome, or other complex communication needs. CoughDrop is flexible and configurable enough to accommodate the access and comprehension needs of many communicators. CoughDrop users can install this app to access CoughDrop's communication and reporting features on their mobile device. The app includes starter boards for different levels of communication, and boards with large or small buttons can be personalized using the rich symbol set, user-provided images or camera photos, user-recorded audio, speech synthesis, etc. CoughDrop runs on multiple devices, so you can log in on your tablet, phone and computer and have access to the same communication tools and interface. In addition, users can be linked so parents, therapists and supervisors can access a communicator's boards from their own devices to better facilitate modeling, and to make it easier to modify boards without taking away the communicator's device. The built-in reporting and messaging tools also help the support team have a consistent strategy and know what's working across locations and times.

Weave Chat AAC is a free, dynamic, and completely customizable AAC app that is available to a variety of devices. There are over 3,500 pre-configured words with a symbol library including more than 65,000 symbols that you can choose from. Weave Chat AAC offers a large variety of verbs (green), pronouns (yellow), questions (purple), nouns (tan/orange), adjectives (blue), and conversational words (pink). All color choices were made based on the Fitzgerald Key and new vocabulary is added weekly. Users can add their own custom images and categories in Settings —> Manage Custom Images. In addition, users can add their own custom phrases that can easily be accessed from their board; to add phrases, go to Settings —> Manage Phrases. Users can select a synthetic voice (dependent on their device settings) from Settings —> Change Voice Settings - here you can select your voice, vocal pitch, and rate of speech. Image and text size can be personalized from Settings —> Change Image & Text Size (select from default - small, medium, and large). Settings —> Configure Image Keyboard allows the user to turn on/off features that allow for the category text to be read aloud (synthetic voice for categories), to keep the user in the category after a image has been selected (stay on category after image selection), and disable the speech output for individual words so that it only reads aloud when the white text screen is touched (synthetic voice disabled for individual words). The AAC board can be modified in Settings —> Manage Board Builder. Here, the user can select from the default board (you must make a copy to edit it - to do this select “Add new keyboard” and then select “Hide Images” for Type of Keyboard); grid position boards (ranging in size from 1x2 - 7x15 rows/columns); and Board Builder (gives you the option to build a board from scratch). All boards are completely editable and all custom images and categories can be used from all boards. Lastly, Manage Pin Configuration allows the user to set a pin over all (or just some) aspects of customization to lock down features as needed. Feature List: - Dynamic, customizable, AAC boards - Large variety of verbs, nouns, and adjectives with additional vocabulary added weekly - Add custom images and custom categories - Create and save phrases - Select a synthetic voice (as available per your device settings) - Copy & Paste AAC picture icon messages via “share” - Create and/or modify AAC boards via 3 options: grid position boards (ranging from 1x2 - 7x15), hide images, and/or create a new board from scratch - “Text” others who have the app using AAC picture icons - Set a passcode to lock down features as needed - Weave Chat AAC currently only has English buttons/images