Bottom Line: Grace is a customizable picture card AAC system that focuses on communication and interaction rather than a voice. It was developed by a mother of two children with autism.
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I had the opportunity to review Grace in 2013, and when this app was updated, I was more than happy to review it again. Much of the original review remains true, but there are a few exciting changes that have been made.
Grace was developed by Steve Troughton-Smith and designed by Lisa Domican for her daughter, Grace. It is a Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) used to give beginning to intermediate symbolic communicators a sense of independence as they learn to communicate with others in their environment. This app could be used with a person of any age who may have autism or a speech delay, with just some beginning symbols, signs, or gestures at the word level to using pictures to form sentences.
The highlights of this app also remain the same. Grace is a huge time saver! Gone is the searching, creating, printing, cutting, and laminating materials. Organization is also much easier than the traditional PECS (No envelopes here, and certainly no lost pictures either!), as the pictures are organized by category. Grace uses abstract pictures to assist in vocabulary generalization. This is more beneficial in some cases versus using specific pictures (e.g. “I want a soda” (abstract) instead of “I want a Pepsi and that is all I can ask for because that is the picture available to me” (specific). However, these included pictures are the only ones available within the app. Thankfully, if a picture is not within the existing library, you can quickly and easily add pictures from your photo library or the internet.
Grace App is intended to be user controlled/user led, and it supports vocalizations, instead of depending on the device to speak the message. This may take some teaching initially, but once the user understands how to get a message across at the word, phrase, or sentence level, he can begin to do so independently. Once the user creates and shares a message with a listener, the listener should verbally speak the message and encourage the user to try as well. As this needs to be a two-person communication, social exchanges are taking place constantly.
Now, onto the big changes! The best change, in my opinion, was the added ability to add text to pictures. Previously, you had to add the text in a separate app, and then add the picture with the text to Grace. Now, there is an option to add or edit text on each picture. This was especially beneficial since some of the included words are different in my area (I call chips french fries). You can also change the card size and turn editing off. Another big change was the addition of tap card to speak the card for certain users. With the exception of the ability to add, delete, or rename the text, the ability to change card size, tap card for text, and turn off the editing is all done within the settings. In the case of this app, the settings are not within the app itself, but instead located in the actual iPad settings menu.
Overall, this continues to be an excellent app if you are looking for a beginning to intermediate communication system. It is simple to set up, use, and adjust to fit your child's needs. It also is extremely portable, and will work well on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch. The website (www.graceapp.com) is also easy to navigate and provides several tutorials if you have any questions. In addition, Ms. Domican has authored a comprehensive manual for using the app. It covers technical how-to subjects, but its real value is in the tips and step by step ideas for implementing Grace App as a communication system. The improvements made over the last 18 months or so have elevated Grace to a Top Pick among AAC apps!
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Jenni loves communication in all of its various forms.
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