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the latest innervoice blog posts
the latest innervoice blog posts
InnerVoice is the simplest and most engaging way to learn communication skills
our mission
We at InnerVoice are dedicated to improving quality of life for people who struggle with communication challenges. We believe that the current technology is ready but underutilized and that communication can be mastered if people are provided with the right tools.
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We make those tools.
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InnerVoice GPT Assistant: Your essential assistant for mastering the InnerVoice app, enhancing communication for non-speaking communicators with customized avatars, interactive storytelling, and AI-driven learning tools.
By leveraging the latest in AI research and development, InnerVoice GPT Assistant introduces a realm where learning is not just facilitated but celebrated, offering a bridge between technology and human expression that is both intuitive and empowering."
* subscription to ChatGPT 4 required
FEATURES
innervoice artificial intelligence (ai): visual language
As a Microsoft AI for Accessibility grant winner, InnerVoice now features exciting new Azure artificial intelligence technology — which is designed to help all types of individuals become successful communicators.
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Visual Language is an exciting new feature that uses Microsoft’s Azure artificial intelligence technology to teach language and literacy skills in a unique way. The camera displays what you’re looking at. Take a picture and watch InnerVoice’s AI system label your picture with text and describe it with speech — allowing users to see the relationships shared among the environment, speech, language, and text.
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Visual language makes creating and editing buttons easier than ever: just take a picture and InnerVoice’s AI system labels the button and adds a description.
learn from yourself (video self-modeling)
InnerVoice is a thoroughly researched, award-winning communication app for children with autism that teaches social communication skills, using engaging animated 3-D avatars of themselves, characters, or favorite toys. The possibilities are endless.
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Choose a picture of a face to create an animated 3D avatar. Watch the avatars capture your attention as they teach speech, language, and social communication skills.
share your feelings with others
Touching the emojis and typing a message makes the avatars express emotions through facial expressions and tone of voice. Use the avatars to help you learn emotions or to expand how you communicate…you choose!
forget about motionless icons and pictures: learn action words in the moment
Use Giphy’s GIFs, Apple’s Bounce and Loop videos, or the camera’s Slo-Mo footage as tools to demonstrate how the avatars’ words can describe movements and other concepts. See the relationships shared among words, movements, facial expressions, and speech — making learning both captivating and understandable.
“sharing is caring”
Your avatar will deliver any message to friends and family to promote carryover from school to home or just for fun. Messages can be shared via email, Messaging, AirDrop, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
give cues from across the room using remote prompting
Prompting is an evidence-based practice that is used to increase the likelihood of a correct response while reducing the possibility of an error. Remote prompting is a new approach to teaching communicative independence, using iDevices. This technique allows learners to receive a prompt on their iDevice that guides them to the correct response.
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Using InnerVoice, prompts are sent via wifi or Bluetooth from the educator’s device to the user’s iPad to ensure the child will perform the correct skill and reduce the probability of errors and frustration.
Scrolling
Strengthen the connection between written and spoken words — watch the avatar’s words scroll across the screen in sync with its speech, allowing you to see the connection between written...
Color Coding
Use color to help organize vocabulary so that users can locate specific messages quickly and efficiently. Research has shown that the use of color can have a positive effect on...
Data Collection
How do you know if your child is making progress from a specific therapy? The only way to really know is by collecting data. Data collection should occur on a...
Backup and Restore
Save your work — ensure that all customizations are safe from accidental deletions or crashes.
UPDATES
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InnerVoice: Smart Education
We've just released a new, FERPA-compliant version of InnerVoice for classrooms, clinics, and other protected settings.
Sharing Locked
For the FERPA-compliant version of InnerVoice, we have locked out the sharing feature to protect student and patient privacy.
Easy Delete
All user data can be easily deleted via the settings menu. No pictures, audio, or settings will be stored locally.
Updated Privacy Policy
Privacy policies have been updated to show data usage and storage protocols.
Available for individual sale and through the Volume Purchase Program. Get it on the App Store today.
TECHNOLOGY
Neuro-Typical Development
From a very young age, neurotypical children learn social, cognitive, and communicative abilities from their primary caregivers by listening to speech and looking at faces. Recognizing, interpreting, and mimicking their...
Display of Affect
According to current research, children with ASD tend to display different neuro-anatomical characteristics such as slow-developing mirror neuron activity and hypostimulation of the fusiform gyrus (Kanvvisher et al., 1999; Pierce...
Joint Attention
First, joint attention occurs when two separate individuals share focus on an object, activity, or event — but it involves initiating and responding to bids to share attention. To initiate...
LEARN MORE
Eye Gaze
Baron-Cohen (1991) speculates that the innate ability to spontaneously reference an interesting object, event, or person in the world — using proto-declarative pointing (think of a one-year-old pointing at a...
HONORS & AWARDS
Our Promise
To our users, students, their parents, and their teachers, InnerVoice is a powerful, researched and engaging learning tool for developing communication and speech. Our years of direct interaction and scientific expertise allows us to harness the familiar technology of mobile devices and channel it into a fun and creative learning experience.
universally designed easy-to-use
download now on the app store
ABOUT
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, ITHERAPY
Lois Jean Brady
M.A., CCC-SLP, CAS, AT
Lois Jean Brady has over 25 years of experience as a practicing speech-language pathologist, assistive technology specialist and Certified Autism Specialist (CAS). Lois is a proud board member for California Communications Access Foundation (CCAF) and Board of Advisors for International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards (IBCCES).
Career accomplishments include winner of three Autism Hackathons, Benjamin Franklin Award for Apps for Autism, and an Ursula Award for Autism Today TV. In addition to Apps for Autism, she has co-authored Speech in Action and Speak, Move, Play and Learn with Children on the Autism Spectrum. She has authored two professional development courses on the topics of technology and animal-assisted therapy. Lois gives international presentations to both family members and fellow professionals at conventions and seminars on autism and technology. She is currently researching and developing engaging, multi-sensory products to enhance communication, attention, social cognition, and quality of life for individuals with autism.
CO-FOUNDER, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER
Matthew Guggemos
M.S. CCC-SLP, ACAS
Matthew Guggemos is the co-founder and chief technology officer of iTherapy. He is also a speech-language pathologist, certified autism specialist, researcher, and a drummer. Matthew’s design ideas are guided by his professional background as a speech-language pathologist and inspired by his own research into skill mastery.
Notably, Matthew received the 2013 Mensa Intellectual Benefits to Society Award for his design contributions to InnerVoice. He was director of research on a 2015 National Science Foundation Small Business Innovative Research Grant , which provided the emotional communication technology for InnerVoice.
BLOG
Why InnerVoice is Replacing Pictures with Universal Symbols: Emojis and Text
Most communication systems for people with autism use visual symbols. When learning how to use words, pictures are vital supports.
Cognitive Dissonance and Excessive Screen Time’s Negative Effects on Language Development
In 1957, social psychologist, Leon Festinger, described a phenomenon known as cognitive dissonance. This theory suggests that we have an...