Using the Choiceboard Creator™ app on an iPad© to teach choice making to a student with severe disabilities

ABSTRACT

This paper describes an intervention to teach the use of the Choiceboard Creator app on an iPad for choice making to a student with autism, severe intellectual disability, and challenging behavior. This app provides flexibility in the number of pictures and blank distractors displayed, produces voice output, shuffles the picture arrangement after each activation, and makes the selected picture more salient by enlarging it once it has been selected. The effectiveness of the intervention was explored using a multiple baseline across three settings. Pre- and post-assessments of the student’s ability to select a picture given the spoken word or the object and to select the object given the spoken word or the picture explored the further development of picture skills. The student learned to use a display of three pictures in free play, a display of two pictures in morning circle, and a display of five pictures at morning tea.

KEYWORDS:

• iPad
• augmentative and alternative communication
• speech-generating device
• severe disability
• autism spectrum disorder

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the school and the teacher who implemented the intervention and to Genevieve Godwin for completing procedural and observational reliability data.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Funding information

This research was partially funded by a consultancy payment from the school where the research was conducted to the author, as part of the NSW Department of Education and Communities Every Student Every School/Special Schools as Centres of Excellence initiative.

Notes

¹The iPad^© and iPod^© are products of Apple Inc., Cupertino, California.

²Proloquo 2 Go^TM is a product of AssistiveWare, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

³PECS phase III^TM is a product of Pyramid Educational Consultants, Inc., Newark, Delaware.

⁴Pick a Word^TM is a product of PUSH Design Inc.

⁵Go Talk^TM is a product of Attainment Company, Inc., Verona, Wisconsin.

⁶Scene and Heard^TM is a product of Therapy Box, Ltd., London, UK.

⁷Choiceboard Creator ^TM is a product of Techno Chipmunk, http://technochipmunk.blogspot.com.