Point-and-Chat®: Instant Messaging for AAC Users

The Importance Of Communicating Via Instant Messaging And Electronic Text

The use of electronic text is increasingly ubiquitous—and not just among contemporary high-school students. It is becoming essential for many people across all walks of life, even if these people don’t write for a living. People who cannot use e-mail (and increasingly texting and IM) are becoming progressively more isolated. E-mail, IM, and texting are even replacing telephone and face-to-face communications for many, even to the point of texting each other when in the same room, such as during committee meetings.

It is not just that electronic text communication is replacing verbal and written communication in familiar settings. In addition, e-mail, IM, and text messaging form the backbone of new opportunities for socialization, such as social networks and other online communities. Perhaps surprisingly, even though computers are frequently not so accessible to people with disabilities, communication using electronic text offers special advantages for AAC users.

A brief exposition of the omnipresence of electronic communications will provide additional perspective. Most Americans use the Internet, in fact, 73% of all American adults use the Internet and 88% of Americans aged 12-29 use it. Most Americans use e-mail (90% of all Internet users). Most young adults use IM (62% of online young adults, aged 18-27). Half of online young adults use IM as much as or more than e-mail (Pew Internet & American Life project, 2009). For a student or young person who wants to communicate with peers, it is becoming increasingly important to be able to communicate via electronic text—and IM is just as important, or even more important, than e-mail.

The explosion in communication technologies has certainly helped AAC users conduct face-to-face communications, but otherwise they have remained at a communications disadvantage. Certainly, the development of electronic AAC devices has provided a voice for many individuals who had none. The introduction and improvement of their control interface using dynamic displays and of their vocalization via computer synthesized text-to-speech have exponentially increased the things they can say (manufacturers include but are not limited to Saltillo Corporation, Prentke-Romich, and Dynavox). Improved and more natural sounding voices have made participation in face-to-face conversations more natural as well. However, the synthesized voices, especially when played through the small speakers usually found on these devices, do not always transmit clearly over a telephone. Although some of the devices can be used to create text input for a computer, the user must be literate and tech savvy. In addition, though a few of the devices have specialized built-in SMS messaging or e-mail capabilities, none of them have built-in IM software.