Cami is a 15 year-old female with a mild cognitive impairment. She had transitioned from a dedicated AAC device to an iPad and needed assistance choosing the right app for her needs. When I met her she was independently toggling between about five or six different communication applications on her iPad, depending on her needs. We spent a few weeks trialling some of the more popular communication apps, looking for the one app that had everything that she needed, which was word recognition even with slight misspelling, excellent word prediction (which also assisted in increasing her length of utterance), an element of fun, and categories for storing pre-programmed phrases; so that she could tell jokes or have quick access to commonly used phrases, such as “Where are we going?"
Once I demonstrated all of the features of Predictable, it was clear that this one app contained all of the features that she preferred. She is now using Predictable as her exclusive communication app on her iPad, with support for spelling more complex words.
This is the only communication app that I have seen that literally comes with its own bells and whistles. I have demonstrated the app to dozens of people, and one of the first features that I show them is the auditory emoticons (a digital recording of a person whistling, laughing, yawning, kidding and saying “oh!”, “mmmm” and clearing its throat). The sound quality of the auditory emoticons is great, and can help make the user’s communication more natural. The app also has a feature, the Bell Alert, which is a quick and lighthearted sound played to alert the communication partner that the user has something to say. I have also used the app in scanning mode and with a Bluetooth switch and it has worked without any difficulty. I really can’t find anything negative to say about this app. For literate users, it is best around.
