#sfy

"I can't die here yet, I still haven't seen the ending of TOTCF."

speak for yourself was created by two SLPs,  which is really reflected in some of the features found in this AAC program.

speak for yourself has only one grid size, 8x15,  but with a unique feature - the user can begin with as few as two words accessible, and those two words will stay in the same place as their vocabulary expands.

in fact , all of the words in speak for yourself will always stay in the same place, no matter whether you're working with 2 words or the full 14,000 available in the app!

(an image of the speak for yourself home page with all words open)

speak for yourself bases its language system around the concept of motor planning,  meaning that once a user learns where to find a word , they never have to learn that word again - it’ll always be in the exact same place, allowing language acquisition to be supported by the motor plans in the user’s mind. not only that, but all 14,000 words are available within just two taps. this hugely improves speech rate and also makes the app very easy to navigate, in my opinion it’s an absolutely brilliant feature and isnt found within any other software.

words are organised by association, rather than parts of speech - so “book” is found under “read”, rather than under “nouns”. i personally think this makes the app more accessible for young users or people who struggle to understand parts of speech, words are more intuitive to find than in other AAC apps.

this isn’t to say SFY doesn’t focus on grammar at all - the opposite is actually true. verb inflections are always organised in a certain order (eg. the “-ing” form is always two buttons to the right of the root word.) this is really helpful for people learning language through motor planning, and has helped me develop my own grammar skills over time. an inflections folder is also included, so almost any word can be altered to its plural form, past tense, etc.

specific words can be made visible or invisible to the user through the “open/close” feature, to allow progressive language development and to stop the user becoming overwhelmed by too many words. all words can be made accessible through the “babble” feature - great for exploring new words and building motor plans! the search feature is also very robust, it highlights the path to the word and automatically opens the word to make it visible in the future.

once typed into the speech bar, sentences can be stored by touching the “hold that thought” button, which saves sentences to be spoken later. this is an invaluable feature for AAC users, as we so often get interrupted with another question and don’t get to speak what we were preparing!

the typing feature in SFY is very well-integrated. it uses your device’s keyboard, and has the option to read out each letter. it loads quickly, so switching from symbols to typing doesn’t interrupt your sentence flow. however, it doesn’t include the symbols for each typed word like i’ve seen in other AAC apps, and it doesn’t have in-app word prediction.

sadly, SFY is only available in english right now, and it’s unclear whether other languages will be added in the future ; as a bilingual user this is something i’d really love, so i hope other languages are one day supported in SFY!

speak for yourself uses Cereproc voices, with customisable pitch, and Acapela voices are available as an in-app purchase. the supported Cereproc accents are australian english, indian english, south african english, irish english, UK english and US english. however, the former three all sound quite automated and child voices are only available in US english (and british english if you purchase an acapela voice). i’d also like to mention that while i really like a lot of the Cereproc voices, they can sometimes begin to glitch towards the end of very long sentences. not really a big deal, but again, still worth mentioning.

pros and cons!

pros:

words available within two taps

14000 words

organised intuitively

words are easy to add

can be made accessible for visually impaired users

hold that thought feature

robust search feature

variety of voices

good grammar support

free trial version

cons:

only english available

slightly unusual symbols (eg. photo of a witch for “which”)

quite expensive, although often half price on disability awareness days and autism awareness month

only available on iOS

in all honesty, SFY is the most robust AAC system i’ve ever found, and at least on an individual level i can vouch that it has really improved my life. if you’re looking for an AAC system for somebody, no matter how young, i really urge you to consider this as an option, there isn’t really another program like it.