MKP - Assistive Software Products - Communication

About The Grid

The Grid is a fully integrated tool for communication and computer access:

Dynamic screen symbol communication
Text communication
Powerful on-screen keyboard for computer accesss
The Grid is accessed using switches, a mouse, or a mouse substitute (such as a headpointer, or a touch screen).

Using The Grid

Symbol Communication

As a symbol communication program, The Grid enables you to build sentences and speak phrases by selecting symbols. You can have a very simple set of words or phrases, or thousands of words arranged topically.

Symbol communication with The Grid

Communicating with The Grid is fast and easy. You are presented with a grid, such as the one shown to the right. Each cell in the grid can be setup to speak a phrase, add a word to your sentence (at the top of the screen) or jump to another page. Cells can also be configured to speak the sentence, clear it, or a number of other actions.

By selecting cells in turn, you can create and speak sentences, and even save them or print them.

Grid Sets
Creating grids is a simple process. Each grid can contain from one to over 100 cells, and each cell can be edited. To do so, you just right-click on a cell and type in the word - The Grid will find the picture and choose the appropriate colour and settings for you.

There are also a growing range of pre-stored vocabularies available that provide hundreds of grid arranged to provide access to a large vocablary. These are supplied with a symbol library, a complete dictionary of symbols, to allow you to add to and modify the grids.

Flexible appearance
The appearance of The Grid can be changed to suit your needs. Colours, fonts, picture sizes, cell spacing and other options allow you to choose how the program appears. The sentence bar can show large symbols (the same size as the ones in the grid) or small symbols for constructing longer sentences.

Once designed, grids can be printed out for use as overlays on digitised communication aids and exported to Windows CE (see below). You can also use the symbol grids for text communication and input to other programs.

Input options
The Grid supports a wide range of input options:touch-screen, mouse, head pointer, keyboard and switches are all supported.

Environment control
There is seamless integration of environment control, compatible with all major makes of environment controller. You can use environment control into any grid and the GEWA Prog may be trained from within the program.

CE compatability
You can export grids onto a Windows CE computer for portable use via Pocket Grid or Mobile Grid. These allow communication on the move via a robust, lightweight computer. Note that the CE software uses a text sentence bar, not a symbol bar, for sentence construction.

Supports all major speech technology
In addition to a choice of text-to-speech systems, The Grid can be used with digitized (recorded) speech and pre-recorded sound files.

Text Communication
As you type, The Grid's intelligent prediction system helps you finish words and type quickly and accurately. The Grid allows completely free design of keyboard layout, and you can use tools such as phrase linking and word banks.

Text communication with The Grid

The Grid is a powerful text communication program, with tools to enhance accuracy and speed. The sentence bar at the top of the screen can be configured to speak each letter, word or sentence as it is typed.

Find the word you want, fast
Grids can be configured to reserve space on the left or beneath the grid to display predicted words during typing. As you type, the words offered are refined until you find the word you want. Our prediction system learns up to 10,000 words and can arrange words in order of use, so that the words you use often will be suggested first.
You can also use wordbanks - user-defined lists of words - to provide access to topical vocabulary in conjunction with prediction.

Audible feedback allows users to hear what a cell will do before it is selected, helping to eliminate wrong selection.

Word correction features help by correcting common spelling errors, capitalising words automatically and expanding abbreviations. The smart punctuation intelligently places full-stop, comma, exclamation and question marks, and capitalises following words if necessary.

These tools help to minimise the number of selections required to type a word, and minimise erros in spelling and vocabulary.

Flexible appearance
The appearance of The Grid can be changed to suit your needs. Colours, fonts, picture sizes, cell spacing and other options allow you to choose how the program appears. You can change the height of the sentence bar, and choose a different font style and size for it.

Flexible output
You can use symbol grids for text communication, allowing symbol users to graduate from symbol sentence construction to spelling in easy steps. Selecting a symbol cell will add the appropriate text to the sentence bar.

You can also use both symbol and word grids for input to other programs.

Input options
The Grid supports a wide range of input options:touch-screen, mouse, head pointer, keyboard and switches are all supported.

Environment control
There is seamless integration of environment control, compatible with all major makes of environment controller. You can use environment control into any grid and the GEWA Prog may be trained from within the program.

CE compatability
You can export grids onto a Windows CE computer for portable use via Pocket Grid. This allows communication on the move via a robust, lightweight computer.

Supports all major speech technology
In addition to a choice of text-to-speech systems, The Grid can be used with digitized (recorded) speech and pre-recorded sound files.

On Screen Keyboard
The Grid allows access to most Windows programs for people who have difficulty using a keyboard. Powerful options make typing and using other programs efficient, maximising speed and minimising frustration.

Access to Windows with The Grid

The on-screen keyboard tools in The Grid are very powerful, allowing access to all windows features. The most common use is typing into other programs: word processing, writing emails and surfing the internet are all possible with The Grid.

Find the word you want, fast
Grids can be configured to reserve space on the left or beneath the grid to display predicted words during typing. As you type, the words offered are refined until you find the word you want. Our prediction system learns up to 10,000 words and can arrange words in order of use, so that the words you use often will be suggested first.
You can also use wordbanks - user-defined lists of words - to provide access to topical vocabulary in conjunction with prediction.

Audible feedback allows users to hear what a cell will do before it is selected, helping to eliminate wrong selection.

Word correction features help by correcting common spelling errors, capitalising words automatically and expanding abbreviations. The smart punctuation intelligently places full-stop, comma, exclamation and question marks, and capitalises following words if necessary.

These tools help to minimise the number of selections required to type a word, and minimise erros in spelling and vocabulary.

Take control of Windows
The Grid provides control over all Windows functions - as well as emulating the keyboard, you can scan through menus, including the start menu, move and click the mouse pointer, launch and swap between programs and even shut down or restart the computer.

Custom grids are provided for Word, Outlook and Internet Explorer, and you can create grids for any other program.

Flexible appearance
The appearance of The Grid can be changed to suit your needs. Colours, fonts, picture sizes, cell spacing and other options allow you to choose how the program appears.

Input options
The Grid supports a wide range of input options:touch-screen, mouse, head pointer, keyboard and switches are all supported.

Support for early learners
You can use symbol grids designed for communication as writing tools with any standard software. This allows symbol vocabulary to be used for composing emails or typing into a word processor.

Environment control
There is seamless integration of environment control, compatible with all major makes of environment controller. You can use environment control into any grid and the GEWA Prog may be trained from within the program.

Supports all major speech technology
In addition to a choice of text-to-speech systems, The Grid can be used with digitized (recorded) speech and pre-recorded sound files.

Integration

Communication and computer access in The Grid are fully integrated, allowing some of the following possibilities:

Helping the transition from communication with symbols to text
Grid Sets designed for symbol communication can be used for text communication in The Grid. This allows a user to move on and start spelling words, with the option to fall back on the symbol grid to find whole words to add to the text sentence.

Mixing communication with computer access
Whilst writing a document or browsing the Internet using The Grid's on screen keyboard, a user can switch into text communication and have a conversation, and then switch back to resume what they were doing.

Type into Windows programs using symbols
Symbol grids can be used to enter text into other programs, allowing symbol users to write emails or long documents. This is particularly powerful in conjunction with Writing With Symbols 2000.

Access options

The Grid is accessed with using switches or a mouse.

Switch Input
The Grid supports between 1 and 8 switches, and has a comprehensive range of switch options.
You can connect switches via the serial port or USB port, and there are a large range of switches available to suit all users.

The Grid uses scanning to select cells, so cells are highlighted in turn allowing the user to select the cell they want. The order in which cells are highlighted can be configured (including block scanning and overscan), and the scanning can advance automatically, when the switch is held, or when the switch is tapped. You can also assign actions to secondary switches such as accept, cancel, reverse scan (great if you missed one!) and directional scanning for users with many switches.

Mouse Input
The Grid can be accessed using a mouse or a mouse-like device, including a trackball, head pointer or touch screen.

You can choose how the the user will make selections, either when the mouse button or touch screen is pressed, released or held down for a specified time. Users who cannot click a button, such as head pointer users, can also 'click' when the pointer is stationary over a point on the screen, and this can be used to click in programs other than The Grid.

Supports all major speech technology

In addition to a choice of text-to-speech systems, The Grid can be used with digitized (recorded) speech and pre-recorded sound files.