The Eighth Annual Edwin and Esther Prentke AAC Distinguished Lecture Presented by Rick Creech Sponsored by Prentke Romich Company and Semantic Compaction Systems American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Annual Convention Philadelphia, PA November 2004 I consider being asked to speak today an honor. I have attended several ASHA conferences, and I have always been overwhelmed by the size. Of course, before attending my first ASHA convention, the biggest gathering, in which I had ever attended was home coming at the country churches, my father pastored. I liked ASHA better. However, this is the first time that ASHA has paid me to come and speak. I am an Educational Consultant with the Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance Network, however, my masters is in speech pathology. Using my father as an analogy, I am as honored to speak with you today, as my father would have been, if the Southern Baptist Convention had ever asked him to preach there. Oh, by the way, I am my father's son, but I don't preach. Preachers preach, Educational Consultants present. The difference is Southern Baptist churches only allow preachers fifteen minutes to preach. Educational Consultants can have all day trainings! I understand that I have been invited to speak because of my record as a public speaker on augmented communication issues. Twenty years ago, I began public speaking because I was happy that I could speak, and wished to tell others about myself, and what I could do because of technology. My dreams at that point were to talk with people, maybe to help them better understand, the possibilities for people with disabilities. And, if along the way, I made a little income speaking, that would be nice, too. So, off and on, for twenty-three years, it has been a privilege for me to speak with various groups in this country, and a couple other countries, about augmented communication, about seeing the possibilities, not the disabilities of a person. After considerable thought, I chose to speak with you today of my perspectives on the history of augmented communication, current use of augmented communication, and my hopes for the future of AAC. My experience with speech output augmented communication began back in 77 with the HandiVoice 120. Before that time, my written communication had been with using an electric typewriter, and my social communication, such as it was, had been through an alphabet board, which was literally, a wooden board with the alphabet painted on it. When I got the HandiVoice, it was many years before I realize how horrendous a communication system it was, Rick Creech, 2004 Annual Edwin and Esther Prentke AAC Distinguished Lecture 1
and what an amazing job I did, learning to communicate with it. I do not say that as a criticism of the device. I was at an antique automobile show a couple of months ago. The first automobiles made were horrendous. Why would anyone use one of those old horseless carriages, instead of a horse and a carriage, I'll never know? However, those first automobiles were a revolutionary leap from the horse. The HandiVoice was a revolutionary leap from alphabet boards. I didn't know that the HandiVoice was almost impossible to use. To me, it was this miraculous device through which I could talk. Knowing that most of y'all do not know the HandiVoice, I will describe it. It was about the size of a large shoebox, weighing six to eight pounds. It was operated with a numeric keyboard. It had over nine hundred words, some sentences and phrases, and forty-five phonemes, preprogrammed into the thing. Each word, or sentence, or phrase, or phoneme was stored and accessed by a three digit code, for example, hello, was 010. For me to say, Hello, my name is Rick, it took six of those three digit codes. It took only six because, my name is, was a preprogrammed phrase, requiring only one code. However, Rick, was not a pre- programmed word. It took three codes to say Rick that was nine numbers. Now if you think that's bad, let's go for the simple sentence, Hello, this is Rick, Creech, speaking. This would have taken fifteen, three digit codes, for a total of forty-five numbers. Looking back, I am not surprised that very few professionals thought a person could successfully use the HandiVoice 120. But I did. I did, because being able to communicate with people was so empowering to me. I spent days reading books out loud, just to practice using the HandiVoice. I would record testimonials to give to groups on a cassette recorder. The HandiVoice did not have memory to store sentences. So I would get one sentence ready to say, press record on the cassette recorder, record one sentence, stop the recorder, and prepare the next sentence to record. I was not aware, that I wasn't supposed to be able to talk with the HandiVoice. I wanted to speak, and the HandiVoice was the only means I had, so I did it. My next communication system was the Minspeak I, which was Express III hardware, with the pre- pre- Words Strategy software. It was an improvement in speed over the HandiVoice. It was text to speech, so that I didn't have to use phonemes, and it had memory for vocabulary storage. If I wanted, I could save the sentence, Hello, this is Rick, Creech, speaking, in the device and speak this sentence anytime with accessing just three keys. Also, Minspeak I did not use three digit codes to access vocabulary. It used Minspeak icons. Hey, if the ancient Egyptians could use hieroglyphs for writing, I figured I could use symbols for speaking! The three big leaps with Minspeak I was text to speech, personal vocabulary storage, and the use of symbols as an encoding strategy. The TouchTalker was next after Minspeak I. The TouchTalker was better hardware, smaller, better voice, and more memory than Minspeak I. After the TouchTalker, came the Liberator. The Liberator was a super communication system, which I used for twelve years. Not only did I use the Liberator to communicate, I used it for computer access. That means I used the Liberator about three-fourths of my active time. I believe that Rick Creech, 2004 Annual Edwin and Esther Prentke AAC Distinguished Lecture 2
a communication system should be first and foremost a communication system, however, it does increase its functionality, if it can double as a computer keyboard, environmental control system, a PDA, and other things. The more different functions a communication device can perform, the more an augmented communicator will use it, and the better an augmented communicator will learn to communicate with the device. The Pathfinder, which is my present device, doubles as my computer keyboard for all of my computers. My Pathfinder is my remote control for my two televisions and my DVD player. My Pathfinder doubles as my PDA. Therefore, I am always using my Pathfinder for something. Because of this, I am extremely familiar with the Pathfinder. I am going to talk a few minutes on the current use of augmented communication devices. I have already mentioned multi-functionality. I believe that augmented communication devices that are multi-functional, without compromising its first function of personal communication, are the better devices. The Pathfinder is a better device than the Liberator mainly, because it has more functions, I can do more with it. This brings me to another AT-tribute of current augmented communication devices: they are functional. The first augmented communication devices really were not very functional. Some people were able to use those first augmented communication devices because we had the will, the intellect, the determination, the drive, to communicate, however, most augmented communicators were not able to use those first devices well. Today, I see lots of augmented communicators using their augmented communication system well. Augmented communication is more accepted by the public and by professionals. Back in the eighties, when I told a person on the phone that I was using a communication aid which with to speak, I would be liable to be hung up on. Today, I get, most times, certainly, Sir, how may I help you today? Now days I rarely run into a person who refuses to recognize, that the Pathfinder is a legitimate way for me to talk, with him or her. Back in the eighties, however, I could try to talk with some people, and they would act as if I was doing a neat trick, kind of like playing a music synthesizer with my head pointer. Really would be quite frustrating, to be trying to talk with a person, and he or she telling my companion how interesting he is, and never addressing me directly. Now days I rarely get that. Okay, partly because I am usually with my wife or, Derek, my son, and they have zero tolerance for people, who ignore me, and talk only with the person beside me. However, I think it is also because people are in the mind to accept, that someone can use a device with which to talk. Also, the devices are so much better, and the speech is so improved, that people are much more accepting than twenty years ago. Of course, if they are not, I still have my enforcers, backing me up. Current augmented communication devices are still slow. My granddaughter could speak more words a minute when she was a year and a half, than I can. However, I have found over twentyfive years, that it is not the speed of communication, but the quality of communication that matters. Except in certain situations, like when a four-year-old granddaughter is in her Nanny's make-up, bottles having to wait two minutes before you can say, Aaliyah, put that down, Nanny will be mad, does not cut it. So, I just yell, and Aaliyah might or might not listen. I would Rick Creech, 2004 Annual Edwin and Esther Prentke AAC Distinguished Lecture 3
also like to be able to speak faster, when my wife and I argue. Ever tried to win an argument with a woman when you can only speak twenty words a minute? Another limitation to communication systems today, is that they are devices that have to be positioned correctly, in order for augmented communicators to access them. My use of the Pathfinder is limited to when I am in this chair. Put me in another chair, and I am muted. Lay me in bed, and I am muted. Oh, I know, I could use scanning, but I am a direct selector. For me to use scanning would be like you having to use a chalkboard and chalk every time you were in bed, ineffective and messy. Besides, with my eyes, if I were scanning, I need an overlay three times larger! Let's talk about the future of AAC, or at least, my hopes. If there are manufacturers in the audience, get paper and pen out, and take notes. You will be tested on this, next time I buy a communication system. I want a completely natural voice. DecTalk is good, but come on folks; it has not improved in what, seven, eight years? I want a voice that when a dog hears it, it thinks a human is speaking. That will be a hard standard. My Dog has never acknowledged the DecTalk; I have much better success calling the dog with my own natural voice. I would also like sound effects. I think my wife would absolutely die, if one day, she walked by, and I made a wolf whistle. I know, the Pathfinder can record a wolf whistle, but I do not want to use another man's whistle! I would like to be able to produce several types of whistles. Also, I want a hollering mode. And no, not for arguing with my wife. The kids, perhaps, but not for hollering at my wife. I am smarter than that. The Liberator had a very loud siren, which I liked. The Pathfinder does not. In my opinion, a person needs the ability to holler for help, or for a person across a noisy area, or for your dog, or in a crowd. I would like to connect to the Internet with my communication system. If I could, my communication system could double as my work desk, and my computer used only to transfer information back and forth, between my communication system and my computer. Even now, I do most of my work on my Pathfinder, and then transfer the work to my computer. With Internet Connectivity, I would need to use my computer less and less. I am assuming that by that time my communication system would have a full text editing software, so that I would not need to run my work through a computer, that I will be able to format and then print my work directly through my communication system. I realize that this has little to do with interpersonal communication, however, I am advocating communication at all levels, and productivity, and opening areas where augmented communicators could rely on their communication system more and more. The fact is the more augmented communicators use their communication systems, the better they become with their systems. Augmented communicators are not talkative people, we run out of things about which to talk, therefore, if we use our communication system only for interpersonal communication, we will not be using them a lot. However, if we can use them to write letters, to send emails, to program our televisions and DVD players, we will be continuously using them, so that they will become easy for us to use in interpersonal communication. While I am explaining my hopes, I will mention that I would like a communication system that can up-load books from the Internet or CD, so that I can read them on the device's display, or if Rick Creech, 2004 Annual Edwin and Esther Prentke AAC Distinguished Lecture 4
I wish, have the communication system read them to me. I am afraid I would be lazy and have the communication system read them to me. Finally, my hope for the near future of AAC is a communication system that remembers everything I say about a particular subject, so that it will get accurately predict what I am likely to say on a subject. This is a couple steps beyond word prediction. This would be sentence prediction based intelligently, on the augmented communicator's previous statements on any given subject. I am talking about building artificial intelligence into our communication systems. Finally, my dreams for AAC. One of my dreams is for an AAC device that would be a seamless part of me. I mean I would have access to it twenty-four seven. It should be as easy as wearing a wristwatch. I would not be averse to having electrodes implanted in my brain that would control the device. And I really do not think that is that far fetch if we continue progressing thirty, forty more years. More immediately, like in time for me to get good use out of it, I expect AAC devices with artificial intelligence. I expect one day to be using a device, which I input, a couple of key words, and the device will give me a choice of five, six sentences, one of which, because the device will know my lexicon, will be the precise sentence I want to speak. Now, I am not expecting this today, or tomorrow, or next year, but I am expecting it to happen within my lifetime. Do not disappoint me, and other augmented communicators. We will, haunt you. Just kidding, we will just bug you while we are alive. Again, thank you, for inviting me to speak. I hope, you still think I was a good choice, but, no, even if you think I was the wrong choice, I'm not giving the money back. If there's time, I will entertain some questions, and try to be entertaining in my answers. Rick Creech, 2004 Annual Edwin and Esther Prentke AAC Distinguished Lecture 5