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One of the most well known methods for working with students who are non-verbal is the Picture Exchange Communication System, or PECS.  According to the PECS website, “PECS was developed in 1985 as a unique augmentative/alternative communication intervention package for individuals with autism spectrum disorder and related developmental disabilities.”  As the name suggest, PECS begins by having students exchange pictures to request a desired item from a communication partner.

Recently a meta-analysis was conducted by Flippin, Reszka and Watson (see full citation below) to examine the effectiveness of PECS for students with autism spectrum disorders.  Overall they found that “ Results indicated that PECS is a promising but not yet established evidence-based intervention for facilitating communication in children with ASD ages 1–11 years.”  Specifically, here are a few things I took away from the article:

• The publication mentions several reports that suggest that PECS has increased functional communication in students with ASD in a relatively short time period.  While this is good to note, the article makes the point that while positive, these reports lack evidence.
• There are enough articles mentioned throughout the publication that will keep any researcher busy for some time, but the most common outcome from referenced studies was the success in increasing students’ ability to request items.  While this is far from what one would  consider to be proficient communication skills, it is never the less a positive result that data clearly indicates is capable with PECS.
• Some studies referenced did demonstrate an increase in communication.  Some of these were said to have treatment fidelity (meaning that it was clearly demonstrated that PECS was implemented correctly) while others did not.
• Data is limited for the maintenance phase (ability to continue effectively using PECS after training) and the generalization phase (using PECS effectively in other settings).

Anyone using PECS or working with students with ASD and communication delays should read this article.  It is titled “Effectiveness of the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) on Communication and Speech for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Meta-Analysis” by Flippin, Reszka and Watson in the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, May 2010.

It is important that classroom teachers as well as AT specialists and other related service providers are familiar with what the research says.  While this article demonstrates the effectiveness of PECS for requesting items, it gives concern for having expectations past this, or for assuming that a student will maintain progress once training stops.

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I ran across a cool litte application called Evernote that I wanted to share.  You can check it out at evernote.com.  According to the site:

Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere. Did we mention that it’s free?

I have an office computer, laptop and home computer in addition to an iPhone and access to the internet about everywhere I go.  Evernote gives me a system for collecting notes, to do lists, websites, photos and more in one place.  Say I’m at a store and need to snap a picture of a product to check out later.  No problem, I just take the pic with my phone and add it to evernote.  It will show up on my computers, phone and evernote website when I log in.  Same goes for contacts, notes from a lecture and more.

From an educational perspective, think of how useful this would for students who are in seven class periods a day and have computers and/or internet capable phones at home.  I can see this being a very useful resource for them as they collect information for a report, story or other project.  In addition, for students who have poor organizational skills, this could be an excellent support.  A screenshot of the desktop version for windows is below, but this application works on the internet, mac and iPhone as well.  Oh, and it’s FREE for the basic version that should handle most uses.  The premium version on runs $5/month.

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Just finished reading about how to integrate whiteboard lessons into online learning environments where the FREE software LectureScribe was mentioned.  LectureScribe is a software developed by Brian Dean, an assistant professor of computer science at Clemson University.

I viewed a demo of the software and found it very well put together.  Although it is recommended that you use a tablet PC or WACOM (input device you for computers that you can use a digitized pen with), you could always use a regular PC with a mouse (just know it may be a bit frustrating).

The software gives you multiple boards so that you don’t have to include your entire lecture on one board.  It also allows you to record audio.  When finished, it saves as a .swf or flash file, which is compatible with almost all web browsers.  From there, you can post it to your site, blog, eLearning course or whatever floats your boat. Currently the software is PC only.

Oh, and did I mention it’s FREE!  Check it out at http://www.cs.clemson.edu/~bcdean/lscribe/.

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Most of us are probably familiar with products that turn digital text into speech.  Programs like Read&Write Gold and Kurzweil are feature packed applications that will not only read almost any digital text to you, but also provide numerous other supports such as advanced spell check, word prediction and more.  Other programs, like ReadPlease are basic (but free) and allow you to copy and paste any text in and have it read out loud.

The only major downfall to these programs is that a student must be sitting in front of a computer to use them.  Having one computer with text to speech capabilities doesn’t do you much good when 15 kids need it at the same time.

To help remedy this, there are several products out there that allow you to turn text into an audio file (typically an mp3 or wav file).  Once created, students can listen to it on their portable mp3 player, cd player, or even their computer at home.  Granted, this isn’t always as effective as being able to see the text as it’s being read out loud, but it does work for many students.  Surely you’ve seen all of the earbuds hanging out of kids’ ears haven’t you?

Before I list some options, I should mention one concern I consistently get is that not all students have the mp3 players.  This is true, but according to a recent report specializing in tracking the use of digital music and digital music players, over 70% of respondents ages 12-17 already have some type of portable music player.  This is up from 54% last year.  What’s more is that not all portable media players are as expensive as iPods.  A recent search on WalMart.com showed a 2GB video and audio portable media player for under $30!

Now that that’s out of the way, how do we turn text into audio files?  Well, there are really 2 ways: a software application (or one feature of a software application) and a web site.  Let’s look at each…

On the Web:  These websites allow you to paste digital text in and they will automatically create the audio file for you.

• Vozme.com
• HearWho.com (only free for limited amount of text)

Software Applications:

• Read&Write Gold – Contains a “Speech Maker” feature that turns text into a wav or mp3 file
• Text to Speech Maker
• Other options – a website containing several low cost text to audio programs

If you know of any additional programs, especially free programs, be sure to post in the comments section or send me an email.

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Finding a solid free application to convert videos to an iPod format isn’t easy.  I’ve tried several out and have came to the conclusion that WinFF is about the best available at the time of this writing.
WinFF is about as simple to use as it can get.  Simply click “Add” (see screenshot below) to add the video you would like to convert, then choose what format you would like to convert it to.  The purpose of this post is to show a good converter for converting videos to an iPod format, but WinFF can convert to many other formats as well.

Download WinFF for free at http://code.google.com/p/winff/

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OK, so this post doesn’t really have much to do with educational technology, but it solves an annoying problem.  In Vista, if you have a shortcut icon on your desktop there is a huge arrow that attaches itself to the icon to show that it is a shortcut to another location.  One way to fix this is to edit your registry, but that’s never really recommended unless you are an experienced user and aware of all the risks.  Instead, download the free Vista Shortcut Overlay Remover by FXVisor.  You can download it from http://www.frameworkx.com/ or PC World.

After installing, simply open the program, choose no arrow and log off.  Once you log back on you’ll see that you no longer have a shortcut arrow on your icons.