All Things AAC Support

Technology – it’s amazing until it stops working. We understand it’s even more frustrating when freezing screens, power difficulties, and lags become a barrier to communication access. While the speech team is always here to help, it’s just our luck these things can happen following afternoon pick up or over a long weekend. Below are tips and tricks to prevent damage to your child’s AAC device and what to do when things get glitchy:

Charge your device every night: Just like we plug in our laptops and cell phones after a long day, have your child’s device be part of this routine. This ensures a few important things:

·       Your child can access communication for the entirety of the day (it’s their human right!)

·       Most iOS updates will only begin if a device is plugged in and guided access is off. Or, they attempt to update and end up causing glitches later.

Turn guided access off at night while charging: Guided access is a fantastic feature to keep our kids on their intended communication application. However, when it is always on, it can prevent other features to run. Make it a part of the nightly routine to turn off guided access and plug in devices to allow for:

·       Automatic updates

·       Automatic backups of vocabulary or grid sets

·       How to disable guided access:

o   For devices without home buttons: triple click the power button and select “end”

o   For devices with home buttons: triple click the home button and select “end”

Utilize battery saving strategies: Especially recommended to use if you’re going to be out all day or exposed to high outdoor temperatures. Here are a few things you can do:

·       Reduce brightness on the screen

·       Turn on “Low Power Mode” if you know charging will be unavailable

·       Attempt to keep devices in a cool environment or in the shade on hot days.

·       Avoid keeping them in unventilated areas or in direct sunlight when not in use.

·       Ensure “Sleep/Wake” button is toggled on so your device will respond to the power button when in guided access. Steps below:

o   Triple click the appropriate button to exit guided access

o   Select “Options” in bottom left of the screen

o   Toggle on the “Sleep/Wake button”

o   “Start” guided access in upper right corner

·       If on guided access, set a certain time span for the device to “sleep” after inactivity. Steps below:

o   Exit guided access and navigate to the device “settings” app

o   Select “Display and Brightness”

o   Select “Auto-Lock”

o   Select the time in which you want the screen to “sleep” after inactivity. We recommend 1-2 minutes. Reach out to your SLP for individual recommendations.

Utilize forced restarts for glitches: Common issues we see with devices include frozen screens, speech output not working, slow or lagging activation of icons, or devices not turning on. We always first recommend taking your device out of guided access to restart the app, or power off the device. However, if the screen or buttons are not responding here’s how to perform a forced restart:

·       For devices with a home button: Press and hold the home button and power button simultaneously until the white apple appears.

·       For devices without a home button: Quickly press and release the volume up, then quickly press and release volume down, and finally press and hold the power button until the white apple appears.

Pro Tip: if your device isn’t responding, plug it in to give it an extra “boost” and attempt the appropriate forced restart again

Have a place to “back up” your child’s vocabulary: Your child’s vocab should ideally have a routine back up if devices are severely damaged. This way, there is a place to retrieve the most updated version of your child’s vocabulary. This is dependent on your child’s type of communication application (i.e. TD Snap, Touch Chat, Grid, LAMP, etc.) Reach out to your child’s SLP to get more information on how to back up your child’s device. We do our best to back up as we edit but cannot guarantee our team can frequently back up their entire caseload. We rely on your involvement to support your child’s access to their voice!