The first part of today’s session was devoted to building more skills in using Ipod touch with a proloquo2go application. All the information needed to use the proloquo2go can be found here. Reviewing this manual is a sufficient start even for a person who never had previous experiences with proloquo2go. We also walked through an overview of creating categories and messages in proloquo2go. Furthermore, changing the settings and personalizing an Ipod touch, especially the view, sizes, restrictions were explained. Those settings are essential and exceptionally useful because, for instance, being able to lock changes would help to prevent kids from changing by mistake what is supposed to help them and not being able to have it back.

The second part of today’s session was devoted to thinking and imagining how to design categories and actual messages for a kid with a particular case and needs. In order to design those categories and messages, planning is an essential start. Thinking ahead of time what that kid with the particular case might need in specific situations and contexts requires analyzing the common expressive phrases needed. Being able to find such common phrases online is a great help in the planning phase for a beginner. A point that was raised today when discussing the effectiveness of any design is keeping the design as simple and easy to follow as possible. A basic reason for that is that those kids need to use the device as fast as possible and the more complex it becomes, the more cognitive abilities it requires.