Grammar support

The problem

Language development

Having access to verb conjugations and inflections for nouns, pronouns and adjectives is vital to support language development of the AAC user. One of the reasons it can be challenging for an AAC user to develop mature grammar use is that most AAC systems do not provide them with access to all possible inflections. Imagine having to learn a complex grammatical system by just hearing and reading it, with only limited opportunities to use the grammar system yourself! Most people would find this a very difficult task. To make sure all AAC users have access to the full range of inflections, we have incorporated automatic grammar support into Proloquo2Go. The grammar support offers all possible inflections, which is unique in the AAC world.

Automatic inflections

Ultralingua

Back in 2008, when we started work on Proloquo2Go, we knew we wanted to make it really easy for users to have access to the grammar support they needed for proper language development. For this reason, we partnered with Ultralingua, a company specializing in dictionaries and linguistic tools. By incorporating their ULAPI linguistic tool into Proloquo2Go, we are able to conjugate any verb, noun, pronoun or adjective, irrespective of whether they are already included in our standard vocabularies or added by the user.

Inflection popups

Our next step was providing a way for users to access the inflections as needed. We designed an automatic popup that gives the user access to the different forms of the word. If the user needs the root form of a verb or noun, pronoun or adjective, a single tap inserts this into the message, while a tap and hold provides access to the word's inflections.

Verbs - where the action is

Proloquo2Go offers the full range of verb tenses, including all the past, present, future, perfect, and conditional tenses. Touch and hold a verb button to bring up the inflection popup and select a pronoun - your verb conjugation choices are changed to the conjugations for that pronoun automatically. Tapping the “Not“ button automatically shows the negative forms for all tenses - with contractions. And all this is available from one single inflections popup.

Extra help

Proloquo2Go users are also able to preview their inflection choices by hearing them before they select one to add to the message window. Simply tap "Preview" and any of the words tapped will not be added to the Message Window but spoken aloud. Listen to as many different forms as you need to, and when you’re sure of which one you want to use, tap the green buffer button to enter it into the message window.

User control

Some users are not yet ready to use inflections, or need access to a simplified set of choices. For this reason, Proloquo2Go has several options to adjust grammar support. Grammar support can be turned off completely or can be customized by turning on or off individual tenses and inflections in the Options. It is also possible to choose between tap and hold or double tap triggers and adjust the timing of the hold or double tap to accommodate users with limited fine motor skills.