The newest version of DropTalk 5 is one of the VOCA applications. More than 700 symbols are built in in advance. A familiar illustration and Japanese voice are added to each symbol. These are based on the picture symbol library “Drops” developed by Droplet Project.
Published in Chapter:
Gifted School Activities With DropTalk, Parent-Teacher Notebook, and SmileNote for Students With Disabilities
Takamitsu Aoki (National Institute of Special Needs Education, Japan), Noriko Nakagawa (Kyoto University of Education Attached Special Support School, Japan), Ryoichi Ishitobi (School for the Mentally Challenged at Otsuka, University of Tsukuba, Japan), Susumu Nakamura (School for the Mentally Challenged at Otsuka, University of Tsukuba, Japan), Shoko Inoue (Ito Elementary School, Matue, Japan), Makoto Kinoshita (HMDT Co., Ltd., Japan), Masayuki Yamashita (UNI-TY Inc., Japan), and
Shigeru Ikuta (Otsuma Women's University, Japan)
Copyright: © 2020
|Pages: 22
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-1400-9.ch011
Abstract
Three programs, DropTalk, Parent-Teacher Notebook, and SmileNote, were developed by teachers at schools for special needs education to help students with various disabilities, in collaboration with businesses supportive of students with disabilities. DropTalk was developed to help students with nonverbal communication by using Pictogram and text overlaid with voice/sound. A digital-based Parent-Teacher Notebook was developed to share the valuable data on each student between their home and school. The shared data are effectively used to build up individual support plans. SmileNote was developed to help students with nonverbal communication disabilities present their wills, hopes, and desires to the classmates and others. In this chapter, the aims and valuable functions in three software applications are described in detail, and self-made contents created with the software and gifted school activities conducted at several schools for special needs education are depicted.