iCommunicate - Muslim Friendly Apps

iCommunicate Oct 28, 2011

I’ve heard a lot about iCommunicate in my involvement with the Autism community and I’m excited to have the chance to see for myself what this app can do. Many people with Autism (and other special needs, I specify autism simply because that’s the community I’m personally familiar with) are non-verbal or have difficulty with communication and use these sorts of apps to communicate (hence the name). We were honored to be able to give a copy of iCommunicate away on our facebook page to a family who needed it and now, we are excited to (finally) write our review.

iCommunicate is fairly simple in functionality, it doesn’t have a lot of extra bells or whistles (which I think is a good thing because they are frankly unnecessary in this kind of app and may even be distracting), but it is hugely versatile. The first place you’ll want to go is the ‘Options’ page (screenshot below, left) where you can set your preferences. Then you’ll want to have a look at the built in example Storyboards to get a feel for what you can use the app for (the examples are perfect and show the versatility of the app well). On the ‘Info’ tab (screenshot below, right) you can watch great instructional videos, I recommend doing this to familiarize yourself before you start creating your own storyboards or adding pictures. Once you’re familiar and ready to create your own storyboards, you’ll want to upload your images to the app in the ‘Pictures’ tab or jump right into making your Storyboards (you can add the images while creating the storyboard as well which is helpful if you are taking photos to go with a schedule or task).

The Text to Speech voice has several languages and accents (some languages have a male and a female option) Australian, Canadian (English or French), Dutch, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, UK, US and US Spanish. The text to speech is really impressive, the words are spoken naturally (as opposed to robotic) and all you need to do is name your pictures and it will use the Text to Speech if you don’t record your own audio. I tested the Text to Speech with a couple of Arabic words we use regularly (Bismillah which means ‘With Gods Name’ and Eid which is a Muslim holiday) and as is to be expected, it didn’t handle them too well (we have English & Arabic as well as American and Kiwi English speaking accents at home so our language isn’t all that conventional). The way around using non English (or unfamiliar) words is to record your own audio for those words or play with the spelling until the Text to Speech can pronounce it more closely to correct (chances are you won’t get it 100% accurate and this can be time consuming but is an option for non-verbal teens or adults who want to set it up themselves).

Setting up pictures is fairly easy you add them from your camera, photo library or from Google Image search which can be done directly in the app. The app comes with a good selection of pictures already loaded which are great and you can do a lot just with them. You also have the option of loading a simply enormous SymbolStix library. I downloaded the library and it is huge, I’m going through and deleting any we’re not going to need, it took me forever just to get through the #’s and A’s, so it’s going to take me a while. If you are using this app as an AAC (Alternative or Augmentative Communication) app then I highly recommend downloading this library for flexible vocabulary options. If you’re using it for visual schedules, social stories that kind of thing, you might not need to download the library, I suggest downloading it and deciding for yourself (you can easily delete the library again from the options tab) or having a look online to help you decide if you want it or not.

I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of the SymbolStix library yet but I did discover ‘Aid Al Adha’ (which is usually spelled Eid Al Adha and is a Muslim holiday) is included in the library (see screenshot below) along with a huge range of other internationally and multi-culturally relevant images. Impressive. I’m keeping the library (for now) because even though both my children are verbal, my youngest struggles with communication and I think the images that describe complex concepts visually could be a valuable tool for him. I also see huge potential for teaching concepts in the homeschool classroom (might be easier for the kids than my wild scribbling on the whiteboard to visually explain a concept).

I haven’t spent as much quality time setting up the schedules, social stories and educational concepts I want to for my kids yet, but I set up some basic daily routines (see screenshot below) and I can’t wait to get some more time to push the potential of this app for my childrens special needs as well as for our homeschool classroom.

The schedules can be set out as slideshows (showing one image at a time) or as storyboards like the one in the screenshot below. You can zoom in and out just like you usually do on an iPad (double tap or pinch zoom), tap an image for audio and hold your finger on an image to put a check mark when complete (In Task Completion mode). The images I used below in our storyboard are some I threw together quickly using stock images, let me know if you want any of the ones you see and I’d be more than happy to post them for download.

If you have someone in your family who uses an iPad/iPod as an AAC device, who needs a robust visual schedule or social story app or a tool for developing visual descriptions of concepts in the classroom. This app is well, well worth the $50 to give you all of those options.

I tagged the app with all possible tags because really you make the app be what you need it to be, so if you are opposed to Music, Faces etc. then they don’t need to be in this app at all, it’s up to you.

Check out Grembe Apps’ other great products My Pictures Talk and iReward.

In Short

iCommunicate is an app with mind boggling possibilities. The educational and assistance opportunities this app has are endless. Well worth the price, we highly recommend it if you work with children or have children who have special needs or respond well to visual learning.