Using Proloquo2go

Today's class certainly forced us to work together as a group to design a program to allow a non-verbal grade three student to communicate in various environments. Having no experience with programming for a non-verbal student, it was challenging for me to think in terms of the needs of this student. I felt assured that someone in the group would have some expertise or experience in this field and that we could program the Proloquo2go so that it was an efficient and effective tool for the student to use when communicating with others. We used many of the same principles and guidelines that we use in our planning team meetings at school to come up with our plan.

We examined her profile for strengths and challenges and decided as a team how many categories we would include. After some discussion we decided that the task of using the IPod Touch would be two-fold for our student. She would learn to use a new and popular technology and she would have to use it to communicate with others. Because a training time would be involved we decided not to initially overload her with choices. Based on her interests we decided on the number of categories and the language choices we would program into each category. We felt we could introduce more words and phrases as she demonstrated proficiency in using the IPod Touch and Proloquo2go program. We decided on the types of language and/or phrases that grade 3 students use when talking with each other and we incorporated that language into her choices. Another thought that occurred to me later would be to provide a list of choices that the student could select from prior to programming the device. Involving the student (and even some of her friends) in the process of choosing language would be an important step to ensuring the use of the AT by the student.

It would be important as time moved on, to ensure that the language programmed into Proloquo2go suits the needs of the student as time progresses and her learning needs and personal needs change. Proloquo2go is a wonderful program which has the potential of bringing a higher level of independency to a student. The following is a sample of the how one individual uses the Proloquo2go to communicate her needs and wants. Although the girl in this sample is older, the video demonstrates the capability of the Proloquo2go program to bring "normalacy" in communication to an individual's life. It is an amazing program!