sesl
Active member
- Joined
- Sep 14, 2009
- Messages
- 68
- Reason
- Loved one DX
- Diagnosis
- 09/2009
- Country
- Aus
- State
- NSW
- City
- Sydney
A few questions about communication applications:
First - about software for a laptop:
My mother has bulbar onset ALS - thinking about getting her a netbook (mini laptop computer) that she can cart around to help her with using MSN Messenger, email and so on when she's away from her desktop computer. Is there any good communication software that we could load onto a laptop or netbook that would help? I imagine she might use the laptop not only for "distant" communications with people who are elsewhere, but also to talk to someone across the table at lunch - is there something that would assist with this other than typing into MS-Word or similar?
Second, is anyone using the iphone application proloquo2go? It looks pretty good, but I'm not sure whether her fingers would cope with the minature keyboard. I also don't want her to have to learn multiple communication technologies. That would be a challenge.
Third question - interested in whether anyone has compared any of the above to a LightWriter. We can borrow those for free, but the laptop option would have additional features (eg. email), and so would the iphone (eg. SMS texting).
So overall I'm interested in whether anyone can provide comparisons or pro's con's of any of these, or even just opinions about which of these work.
I have read the previous thread about Communication Devices, but my question is more specific about the options that we've been considering . . . and I didn't want this question to get lost at the bottom of that thread.
Thanks - SESL
First - about software for a laptop:
My mother has bulbar onset ALS - thinking about getting her a netbook (mini laptop computer) that she can cart around to help her with using MSN Messenger, email and so on when she's away from her desktop computer. Is there any good communication software that we could load onto a laptop or netbook that would help? I imagine she might use the laptop not only for "distant" communications with people who are elsewhere, but also to talk to someone across the table at lunch - is there something that would assist with this other than typing into MS-Word or similar?
Second, is anyone using the iphone application proloquo2go? It looks pretty good, but I'm not sure whether her fingers would cope with the minature keyboard. I also don't want her to have to learn multiple communication technologies. That would be a challenge.
Third question - interested in whether anyone has compared any of the above to a LightWriter. We can borrow those for free, but the laptop option would have additional features (eg. email), and so would the iphone (eg. SMS texting).
So overall I'm interested in whether anyone can provide comparisons or pro's con's of any of these, or even just opinions about which of these work.
I have read the previous thread about Communication Devices, but my question is more specific about the options that we've been considering . . . and I didn't want this question to get lost at the bottom of that thread.
Thanks - SESL