Proloquo4Text AAC vs PECSTalk™

Proloquo4Text™ is a text to speech app for those who cannot rely on their voice to speak. The app is laid out on a single screen to reduce the effort of typing. The layout enables easy, daily conversation and quick access to your most common phrases. Personalize it to your needs and preferences, whether that’s through choosing from the many voices available, or through customizing your screen layout. Proloquo4Text is the leading AAC solution for literate adults, teens and children. It is used by people with a wide range of diagnoses, including developmental disabilities (like autism, apraxia, and cerebral palsy) and acquired disorders (like laryngectomy, ALS, stroke, or traumatic brain injury). Proloquo4Text can be used to produce speech by anyone who can type and spell. Communicate with ease • Use the single screen for easy access to words, phrases and keyboard • Switch easily between conversations, making it easy to answer a question in another conversation, without disrupting what you typed in the first conversation. • Decide when you speak with play, pause and speak-as-you-type • Adjust appearance (font, color, text size) to your preference and needs Reduce typing effort • Create, save and organize commonly used phrases • Make typing quicker with advanced, self-learning PolyPredix™ word prediction • Show what you typed with the fullscreen view and flip text features • Type once, then say it again with history and sentence prediction • Use keyboard shortcuts for quick access when using an external keyboard Choose your voice • Download, natural-sounding voices within Proloquo4Text. All premium Acapela voices are included in Proloquo4Text with no in-app purchase. • Add personality and humor to your conversations with free specialty voices • Choose from over 100 voices in 18 languages, so you can find the one that sounds most like you. Switch easily between languages. • Use my-own-voice, a voice-banking technology, to preserve and capture the essence of your own voice in synthetic speech. Share your world • Send email, messages, and tweets from Proloquo4Text • Write in Proloquo4Text and copy your text into another app • Listen to text by pasting into Proloquo4Text • Make phone and FaceTime video calls with Proloquo4Text. Take your voice anywhere • Proloquo4Text is available on both iOS and macOS. With iOS, you can use the app on your iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. The Mac version is a separate purchase on the Mac App Store. • Smoothly transition between devices, thanks to Proloquo4Text’s consistent navigation on iPhone and iPad • Easily access your commonly used phrases on Apple Watch, and just tap to show or speak them. You can customize the contents shown on the Watch from your iPhone. Accessibility features • Follow words as they are spoken with optional sentence or word highlighting • Optimized for Switch Control and VoiceOver • Communicate without an internet connection • Use multitasking functionality to run another app side-by-side on supported devices • Keep your devices in sync by easily backing up and restoring your customizations and stored phrases. AssistiveWare® is the developer of Proloquo2Go®, an award-winning symbol-based communication app that provides a voice to over 200,000 individuals around the world. Additional note: Educational institutions can get a 50% discount if they purchase 20 or more licenses through Apple’s Volume Purchase Program for Education.

PECSTalk™ is an AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) app used by individuals with complex communication needs, including those on the autism spectrum. Designed by the developers of the evidence-based Picture Exchange Communication System® (PECS®), this high-tech option is customizable and easy to use! With access to the full Pics for PECS library, multiple voice output options, and multiple languages, the PECSTalk™ app can be individualized for your learner’s needs. With PECSTalk™, users can construct a multi-picture Sentence Strip™ via a dedicated Sentence Starter™ page and create up to 30 digital PECS book pages for the in-app voice to speak. The digital display is similar in layout to a traditional PECS Communication Book while accommodating the more robust vocabulary of a Speech Generating Device (SGD). The PECSTalk™ app can be used to make requests, respond to questions, comment and ask questions. By converting pictures and text into spoken language, the PECSTalk™ app empowers non-speaking learners to fully participate in their school, home, vocational, and community settings. Languages Available: English, Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Simplified Chinese, and Spanish Features of PECSTalk™: Looks like a traditional PECS book with colored, tabbed pages with VELCRO® strips and a Sentence Strip so you can create a digital PECS book that looks identical to your learner’s book, accommodates vocabulary growth and grammatical expansion Access to the full Pics for PECS image library Create customized user defined images Backup & Restore- backup your books locally or to the cloud AND share across multiple platforms and devices Scrollable pages Universal No capabilities- rather than hiding or eliminating an image, a universal No symbol can be overlaid on an image indicating the item is not currently available. Capability to build bilingual books Drag and drop pictures from the tabbed pages to the Sentence Strip just like with a traditional PECS book Switch between pages by scrolling between and tapping on different tabs Rearrange pictures on the Sentence Strip without having to delete pictures Clear Sentence Strips with a single button push or clear individual pictures by swiping them back to the book Integrated features from the PECS protocol such as constant time delay for the in-app voice Customize each book: Open or close the dedicated Sentence Starter page with a single touch Create 1-30 tabbed pages (with up to 28 pictures per page), each with 3 scrollable pages Each book can hold up to 2,500 images Customize each tab by number of VELCRO® strips, color, category icon, and/or number of pictures on each page Customize pictures: Use Pics for PECS images (full picture set included) or add images from your photo library and the web Change text on pictures as well as size Put text on top or bottom of pictures, or remove text Search function for the Pics for PECS library included Speech: Use included synthesized speech or record your own speech Incorporate the research-based constant time delay for ‘reading’ the Sentence Strip to create opportunities for the student to speak Select from included profiles or create new profiles to customize: How pictures are moved: tap, drag or both How to clear (reset) the Sentence Strip Visibility of Sentence Starter page Reading Sentence Strip left to right or right to left When to read the Sentence Strip: as each picture is selected or with a single tap of the “Speak” button after the Sentence Strip is completed Track Learner Usage: Day by day list of Sentence Strips constructed by the student Weekly and monthly analysis of most frequently used pictures