By Jen Straw, MA Special Education

Jordan attends Hope Technology School’s Vocational Education Program. He is considered to be nonverbal and comunicates through the use of various augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices. One of these devices is the HP TouchSmart. One program Jordan has used to aid his communication is the TouchSmart program “Notes”. This program allows the user to make either an auditory only or auditory and video ‘note’. These notes are stored on the programs front page and can be activated with a touch. The original goal of using this program was to give Jordan an opportunity to communicate short sentences in his own voice and use them to make requests or declarations, for example, ‘I need to go to the bathroom’. When Jordan first began using the program it would take him quite sometime to record a 3-word sentence like ‘I am hungry’, sometimes up to 15 minutes. As he worked on phrases and sentences more and more, he was able to read the phrases quicker and quicker. With the immediate play back, Jordan was able to hear and see himself speak. This lead to clearer and clearer articulation. He was able to go from reading 3-word sentences to read short paragraphs. To learn more about Jordan please visit Hacking Autism.org and watch “Jordan’s story” as told by his mother, Gail Ewell.