“I don’t care what the research says…”

A colleague of mine was asking for some references to support the notion that kids with severe learning difficulties can learn to use high frequency core words (such as want, stop, and get) because they were being told that what these kiddos really use (or need) are words like toy, cookie, and banana. I duly provided a quick sample of peer-reviewed articles and shared the information with other colleagues. And what the hell, I’ll share them with you, dear reader, in the References section at the end of this piece.

Reading the research

But another of my friends also commented that there are still those folks who respond with comment such as, “I don’t care what the research says, I don’t care who these kids are. These are not the kids I’m working with. The kids I’m working with just aren’t going to use these words.”

So what do you do about this? At what point does being “critical of the research” become “ignoring the research because I don’t believe it.”? In the world of Physics, it’s hard to say, “I don’t care what the research says, I’m still going to fly using my arms as wings.” Mathematicians don’t say, “I don’t care what the research says, 1 + 1 does equal 7.” And it’s a brave doctor who would say, “I don’t care what the research says, you go right ahead and smoke 40 cigarettes a day and you’ll be just fine.”

No-one would argue that Speech and Language Pathology as a profession will ever achieve the rigid, statistical certainties of physics and mathematics, but what does it say about our profession if we openly admit to ignoring “the research” because it doesn’t fit with our individual experience? There are certainly enough practices  in Speech Pathology that are hotly debated (non-speech oral motor exercises, facilitated communication, sensory integration therapy) and yet still being used. But all of these are open to criticism and lend themselves to experimental testing, whereas an opinion based on personal experience is not. I could tell you that I have used facilitated communication successfully, but that is still personal testimony until I can provide you with  some measurable, testable, and replicable evidence. This is one of the underlying notions of evidence-based practice in action.

However, it’s  one thing to talk about using evidence-based practice but another to actual walk the walk. If the evidence suggests that something you are doing is, at best, ineffective (at worst, damaging), how willing are you to change your mind? If 50% of research articles say what you’re doing is wrong, how convinced are you? What about 60%? Or 90%? At what level of evidence do you decide to say, “OK, I was wrong” and make a change?

If there’s anything certain about “certainty” it’s that it’s uncertain! Am I certain that teaching the word get to a child with severe cognitive impairments is, in some sense, more “correct” or “right” than teaching teddy? No, I am not. But what I can do is look at as many published studies of what words kids typically use, at what ages, and with what frequency, and then feel more confident that get is used statistically more often across studies. This doesn’t mean teddy is “wrong,” nor does it preclude someone publishing an article tomorrow that shows the word teddy being learned 10x faster than the word get among 300 3-year-olds with severe learning problems.

But until then, the current evidence based on the research already done is, in fact, all we have. Anything else is speculation and guesswork, and no more accurate than tossing a couple of dice or throwing a dart at a word board.

Being wrong isn’t the problem. Unwillingness to change in the face of evidence is.

References
Banajee, M., DiCarlo, C., & Buras Stricklin, S. (2003). Core Vocabulary Determination for Toddlers. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 19(2), 67-73.

Dada, S., & Alant, E. (2009). The effect of aided language stimulation on vocabulary acquisition in children with little or no functional speech. Am J Speech Lang Pathol, 18(1), 50-64.

Fried-Oken, M., & More, L. (1992). An initial vocabulary for nonspeaking preschool children based on developmental and environmental language sources. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 8(1), 41-56.

Marvin, C.A., Beukelman, D.R. and Bilyeu, D. (1994). Vocabulary use patterns in preschool children: effects of context and time sampling. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 10, 224-236.

Raban, B. (1987). The spoken vocabulary of five-year old children. Reading, England: The Reading and Language Information Centre.

The Top Seven Reasons To Become a Male SLP

It’s a curious but not unexpected phenomenon that when you talk about Speech-Language Pathologists/Therapists (SLP’s/SLT’s) there’s a markedness component to the word [1]. If you want to talk about gender in relation to SLP’s, the feature [+male] is actually the marked version i.e. you talk either about “SLP’s” or “male SLP’s” – you never say “female SLP.” It’s also a well-established fact that men in SLP are almost as rare as hen’s teeth or unicorns – as some of the folks on Twitter’s #slpeeps hashtag call them. In a recent paper, Litosseliti and Leadbetter (2013) cite studies that suggest that in 1999, 1.9% of UK speech therapists were male (Sheridan, 1999), and six years later, this had shot up to a stunning… 2.5% (McKinson, 2005). In 2010, ASHA reported that 4.1% of the workforce was male, and a 2012 study had Australian males accounting for 3.0%.

Clearly there’s a significant lack of testosterone in the profession and trying to encourage more dudes to become Speechies appears to be an uphill struggle. The McKinson article lists five reasons why men are turned off by this career:

• Lack of awareness of speech and language therapy among boys
• Historically seen as a profession with low pay and costly training
• Perceived poor working conditions. Seen as a role with little opportunity for advancement and under-recognition of achievements. Lack of respect from within employing organizations
• Perceived female stereotype
• Working with children and communication seen as “feminine”

Among the suggested solutions were to (a)  re-brand the image so as to counter the feminine stereotypes and (b) provide more positive images of male SLP’s in the media. Well, the Dudes are certainly not stereotypical and our blog counts as a “media outlet” so here’s our pitch for why guys should consider being Speech and Language Pathologists.

7: You Can Pee Standing Up – Anywhere
Conferences and symposiums are great places to learn new stuff, meet new people, and drink obscene amounts of coffee. Of course, the latter has the well-known physiological effect of causing your bladder to swell to the size of the Montgolfier brothers’ balloon, necessitating the need for a trip to the bathroom. Great news! There’s never a line. Even at the ASHA Convention where the organizers re-label 90% of the facilities, the chances of your getting stuck in a queue are less than the Pope’s chances of hitting it off with Angelina Jolie.

Montgolfier bladder

6. You Don’t Have To Grow Up
Although most of us are fully aware that the phrase “adult male” is an oxymoron, at least as a Speechie guys can not only legitimately play with toys and read kids books but claim tax back on any purchases. You want a remote-controlled robot? Just call it a “language stimulation device” and the IRS will believe you. Need to add a Kinect to your Xbox? No problem if you can argue it’s a “gesturo-motor development enhancer” with a straight face. And running a weekend camp for kids with communication disorders gives you carte blanche to stock up on Super Soakers (TM) and run around like a mad thing squirting anyone who happens to be within range – kiddos included. So anyone with Peter Pan syndrome can safely channel it by becoming an SLP.

5. You Get To Dress and Look Good
Let’s face it: if you’re going to spend 100% of your working life surrounded by women, it’s inevitable that they are going to help you look your best. Your female colleagues are doing their damnedest to be seen as intelligent, creative professionals and don’t want guys who dress and look as if they’ve just had an argument with a hedge trimmer after completing an oil change on their truck. If you take just a moment to listen (I know, that’s not a natural male behavior) they will be happy to tell you whether you look OK and after a year or so on interacting with them, you might not necessarily be ready for the cover of GQ but at least you won’t a candidate for a full-page spread on the “People of Walmart” website.

4. You Get To Appear Smart With Your Non-SLP Peers
Provided you actually listened to all those lectures about phonetics, phonology, syntax, and semantics, you are uniquely equipped to expound on something that every one of your peers has some vague knowledge about: language. And I say “vague” because as we know, there’s a world of difference between using language and knowing about language. Explaining to someone how stress patterns turn the noun “PERvert” into the verb “perVERT” or that “beer” and “bier” are called homophones can make you seem like a college professor – unless you ARE a college professor, in which case this is just called “showing off.”

3. You Get To Use Cool Technology
When I graduated back in the 80′s (that’s 1980′s, not 1880′s) the most sophisticated technology I had was a typewriter, and the only time a phone was mobile was when you dropped it off a table. But now a Speechie can find himself getting to use lots and lots of amazing hardware and software, along with the ability to communicate live with colleagues all over the world – and in real-time [2]. The rate of technological change is now such that there’s always something new to be looking at, playing with, and eventually buying. And as with toys, you can get the tax folks to give you a break on your latest object of desire.

2. You Can Actually Make Money At This Job
According to the 2011 US Census, the median wage is $26,695. The median salary for a Speech Pathologist was $69,100. Although many of us become Speechies because there’s no significant math skills required, it’s not rocket science to see that if $69K is the median, it’s possible to get higher if you’re willing to work hard and charge for your services. And sure, you may not start at the median, but given time, you’re not going to be living in a cardboard box and dumpster diving by the time you hit 35. A six-figure salary may well be in the cards, which means you can get that convertible (or motorcycle) and live a little. Hey, we’re dudes, ain’t we?

Male SLP’s standard wheels

1. You Get To Be Surrounded By Women – And That Will Drive Your Non-SLP Friends Crazy
Men being men, they see no problem with spending time in the company of women. That’s not sexist, that’s biology. Women are, after all, incredibly interesting. Men can be reduced to three motivators; Food, money, and sex. All a woman has to do to understand a man is work out which of these is likely to be motivating a guy at any particular time and you have him pretty much sewn up. Women, on the other hand, have emotional and psychological depth, which is why they are more fascinating than men. But being in the company of women helps you become a more socially rounded person because you do, after all, get to experience – if only vicariously – the “view from the other side” that many blokes who work with other blokes never see.

Edward off to a rave with his colleagues

So there you have it. Forget the “twin set and pearls” of the past and let the Speech Dudes be 21st century role models. We’re looking to do for the profession of Speech Pathology what the guys at Top Gear have done for cars [3]. Or what Anthony Bourdain has done for cooking. Feel free to pass the URL for this article to vocational guidance counselors and careers teachers across the globe.  And if producers at The Learning Channel  are looking for a new “reality show,” we’re just the guys to take it on.

References
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2010, Highlights and Trends: ASHA Counts for Year End 2010 (available at: http://www.asha.org uploadedFiles/2010-Member-Counts.pdf).

Litosseliti, L., & Leadbeater, C. (2013). Speech and language therapy/pathology: perspectives on a gendered profession. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 48(1), 90-101

McKinson, F., 2007, Why do men become speech and language therapists? RCSLT Bulletin, April, 12–14.

Sheridan, J., 1999, A career in speech and language therapy: for white women only? RCSLT Bulletin, February, 9.

Speech Pathology Australia, 2012, Real Men Do Speech Pathology
(available at: http://www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/
education-and-careers/real-men-do-speech-pathology)

Notes
[1] ‘Markedness’ refers to an asymmetry relation between elements of linguistic or conceptual structure. In a marked-unmarked relation, one term of an opposition is taken to be the dominant one while the other is regarded as secondary. The dominant term is known as unmarked and the secondary one is marked. In the case of “speech pathologist,” the word is semantically unmarked for [female], which is why we add the word “male” to create the marked form, “male SLP.”

[2] Although “real-time” communication is indeed possible, it’s important to remember that we live on a big ball and that your buddy in Australia or New Zealand is 12 hours away, so a “real-time” call at 3:00 in the afternoon might not be appreciated. Now matter how slick the technology gets, time zones will continue to bemuse us all – until someone invents a Tardis…

[3] Fans of Top Gear can follow the link below to take a quiz and find out which of the Top Gear presenters you are most like.
http://www.pollsnack.com/polls/qujiblfn
For those curious, I came out as Jeremy Clarkson – so no surprise there then!

Shitosophy: A Philosophy for the Existentially Lost

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine was going through a rough time. He’s also spent his life in a wheelchair with spastic quadriplegia, which I mention just because that sort of thing doesn’t make life any easier. I’ve known him for longer than we’d both probably want to admit and that’s why he presumably felt OK opening up to me.

But then again, we are both guys, and therefore psychologically different from the ladies. Really, we are! It’s one of those things that makes a “Speech Dude” a dude – we think differently. And when it comes to interpersonal comfort, hugging each other and weeping ain’t going to work. For guys, we show our affection in more… how can I put it… robust ways.

So for all of you out there who have been having a little bit of a shitty [1] time lately, here’s what I sent my friend in an attempt to cheer him up. It is, as you might guess, a fairly dude-ish way to interact, but hey, this really is what men are like!

If you really want me to offer some thoughts – not advice, because I am as screwed up as anyone else, and so I’m eminently unsuitable in that regard – you first have to understand that when I say I am a cynical, misanthropic curmudgeon, that’s pretty much as true as it can be. By nature, I believe I am terminally pessimistic, but that’s far better than being a perpetually disappointed optimist. I also have no truck with superstitious religiosity and belief in mystical forces. What you see is what you get and you’re pretty much on your own in life, and once it ends, that’s it – no reset button and no “extra lives” for points earned. What this boils down to is that life sucks, then you die. I don’t particularly like that but that’s the way it is and unless someone can prove otherwise, I’ll stick to that position. 

 Now, grim as all that may sound, you may be wondering why I don’t just tootle off and stick a bullet through my head and at least escape from the mindless, pointless, absurdity that we call “life.” That’s not a stupid question: the philosopher Albert Camus asked the very same thing in the mid-20th century [2]. He – and I – came to the same general conclusion: that given life is meaningless and stupid, it is, in truth, the ONLY thing we have. Life owes us nothing; it has no magical goal; it doesn’t care whether we are happy or sad or in pleasure or in pain; it doesn’t reward you for being good or bad. It just is what it is. So, it’s up to the individual to make some sense of it and build a world that they can handle. As long as you acknowledge that shit will happen – and happen frequently – and to everyone – then the purpose of life becomes how best to shovel it.

You can choose to use a large shovel, a small shovel, or no shovel at all, although if you choose not to shovel, things will begin to smell very bad very quickly. With a big shovel, you can at least clear away enough shit to see the grass, make space for fun things, or provide room for someone to hold on to for a while. Sure, the shit comes back but maybe your friend has a shovel too. 

There is no way to stop the shit. The universe is full of it and can create more on a whim. In fact, I suspect if the universe has ANY purpose at all, it is to make shit. So trying to ignore the heaps of ca-ca that you keep stepping into is simply an exercise in futility. The ONLY way to keep going is to hold on to your shovel and keep digging.

There is a second problem in life that results from the shoveling of shit: where does it go? Sadly, it never goes away, it just gets moved from one place to another. When you shovel shit away from your little path, it may well end up on someone ELSE’S path. Not only do you have to get used to shoveling your own shit but pushing around the shit that other people dump on you!

Yes, it’s that bad!!

But there is an answer. It is not perfect but it sort of works – insofar as anything can be said to “work” in this crazy world. You have to start by focusing on YOURSELF and accepting that things are always going to be bad. Imagine you are standing in a pile of poop and that you’re there for life. Now you have to work out what YOU can do either to move the crap, ignore the crap, or pretend the crap isn’t there.

It’s worth finding people who will help you shovel the shit. They, of course, have to handle their own fecal matter but finding folks who can excavate with you is priceless. They can help take your mind off the do-do and share in mutually beneficial activities. At its heart, friendship is shit sharing. I was almost tempted to coin the new word “friendshit” but that would be too much, even for me.

 And once you come to terms with the fact that shit is all around, you can start keeping an eye open for shiny things that are stuck in the crap. Sometimes it can be a pearl, a diamond, a precious stone, although often it’s just a peanut or two. Nevertheless, by actively examining the poop, you begin to find moments of pleasure, and these are a desirable alternative to the miasma of misery that is the normal condition of living. 

By learning to look for bright things and choosing what to do with them, you make life bearable. Something in your life may be a bright thing or it may simply be just more shit. If you don’t see it as a shiny object, then it is shit; and if it is shit, you need to shovel it away. Learning to tell shit from Shinola is a critical life skill. And remember, you have your own shit to deal with, so don’t let others pile their shit onto you without permission. It’s all about YOU, not anyone else.

 Whatever you decide to do is ultimately your choice. And choice is one of the few things you have that you can call your own. If you do something because other people want you to do it, then they are making the choice for you. And if that leads to a miserable experience, you have just had someone else’s shit dropped on you. On the other hand, if you choose to do something and it’s still a miserable experience, you at least have the satisfaction of knowing that YOU alone made the decision and that it is your OWN shit that you have created .

So, my entire philosophy of Life? Learn to live in shit; learn to tell shit from Shinola; choose the shiny things over shitty things; treasure the fleeting moments of pleasure.

Stick THAT on a T-shirt!!

He came out of his funk. We laughed. He’s still my friend. See, that’s what Dudes are like

Notes
[1] Folks offended by the word shit may want to stop reading now because there’s about to be a small avalanche of the stuff. Unless, of course, you the sort who ignores these numbered references to a footnote until the end of the articlce – in which case you’ve already been subjected to the barrage of shits. It is, however, a perfectly good word that we can trace back to the Old English scitta or scitte, and which was used simply to refer to excrement. It’s status as a profanity seems to fluctuate, and although it’s unlikely to be used by a newsreader on the BBC, it’s currently a middling profanity you’d hear out in the pubs, but one you’d probably want to avoid using with your grandma.

[2] Albert Camus wrote The Myth of Sisyphus back in 1942, when dour, bearded French philosophers wearing long coats and berets would sit all day in street-corner cafes drinking endless cups of coffee and smoking pack after pack of Gauloises while arguing about the futility of it all. He concludes the essay with, “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

There’s no such thing as a “free” app, so get over it and pony up!

In this article, I’m, not just on a proverbial hobby-horse but whipping it frantically as I gallop wildly into the Valley of Death. I may even end up offending some readers but hopefully make some new friends along the way. So saddle up and join the posse!

Imagine getting the following e-mail from someone who wants you to provide therapy services for their child.

Dear Therapist

I am the parent of a child who cannot speak and really needs help. I saw that you offer therapy services to people like my child and I’d love to have access to them. However, I am really surprised that your therapy services are so expensive and think that you should provide them free of charge. Other people provide free therapy services and there are also many people who are not therapists who provide free therapy services in their spare time.

I’d be happy to provide a recommendation of your therapy services to other people if you were to provide them to me for free. Otherwise, I am afraid I will just have to blog about how expensive your therapy services are and go somewhere else. It seems so sad that children in desperate need of help are denied access to therapy services because of people wanting to make a profit from their disability.

Now I’m guessing that your response is likely to be along the lines of “no,” based on the notion that at the end of the day, you’d like to be able to eat, stay warm, and maybe feed your family. You might also be wanting to pay off the huge loan  you took out to train for years to become a therapist in the first place – because those greedy folks at the college expected you to pay for your education! And if you were to give free therapy to this client, the “recommendation” would result in everyone else wanting free help, and that’s not usually a sustainable business model.

OK, so why not copy the email into a document and do a search-and-replace that changes every instance of “therapy services” to “apps.” Hell, why don’t I make it even easier and do that for you below:

I am the parent of a child who cannot speak and really needs help. I saw that you offer apps to people like my child and I’d love to have access to them. However, I am really surprised that your apps are so expensive and think that you should provide them free of charge. Other people provide free apps and there are also many people who are not therapists who provide free apps in their spare time.

I’d be happy to provide a recommendation of your apps to other people if you were to provide them to me for free. Otherwise, I am afraid I will just have to blog about how expensive your apps are and go somewhere else. It seems so sad that children in desperate need of help are denied access to apps because of people wanting to make a profit from their disability.

Sounds familiar?

So how about another stark contrast just to hammer home a little more how ridiculous we all are – and we’re all guilty – when it comes to value and pricing with apps.

Hands up anyone who buys at least one coffee per week from a local coffee store.

Hands down.

The nice people at Statistic Brain estimate that the average price on an espresso-based coffee in 2012 was $2.45, and a brewed one was $1.34. So if you drink an espresso-based coffee each week for a year, you are out-of-pocket by $127.40. More sobering is that there’s a good chance you drink more than one a week, and just having two takes you up to $255 and tax.

So remind me again; why do we whine about paying 99 cents for an app? Why do we jump through hoops to badger, harass, cajole, and even blackmail app developers into giving us freebies? If I’m happy to spend $250 per year on something as trivial as a cup of non-essential coffee, why will I not spend $1 on an app that is apparently “essential” for a child’s education? Is coffee more valuable than education?

Our sense of “value” and “worth” has gone totally to pot when it comes to apps. It defies belief that consumers somehow believe that either it costs nothing to create an app or that app creators are making money out of the wazoo from their yachts just off of Miami Beach. We are, in fact, victims of Crapponomics, the naive misunderstanding of how apps work from an economic standpoint.

Why did this happen? Why is it that when an app developer asks $1.99 for something that took weeks of work we are shocked at the effrontery to ask such an outrageous price and invent some form of “special case” as to why we deserve a freebie?  Let’s take a look at Crapponomics 101.

1. The apps “anchor” was originally free.
In Economics, there’s a concept known as the “Anchor Point.” As the name suggests, it’s the selling price at which you drop your anchor when you bring a new product or service to market. Once an anchor is set, new folks tend to cluster around your safe harbor and drop similar anchors. And when people start purchasing products, this anchor becomes the standard against all other similar products are measured. The average price of an app in 2012 was $1.58, which is 87 cents cheaper than a cup of espresso-based coffee.

The best anchor point for a consumer is usually free. If I want stuff, and the stuff costs me nothing, how bad can that be? Well, the obvious thing is that there’s a little thing called quality that gets factored into the equation, but you’d be surprised (or not) how much quality will be sacrificed on the altar of Free.  And in the early days of iPhones and iPads, the majority of apps were free – which became, and remains, the anchor.

2. Most apps are for marketing, not profit.
In his seminal work, The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins argued that human beings are basically the gene’s way of making new genes. We are, in fact, merely hosts for DNA, and the name of the game of Life is for DNA to exist. In a similar fashion, apps are just the tablet device’s way of creating more tablet devices. Apple, Samsung, and even Microsoft, don’t need to write apps because what they want is to sell tablets [1]. The purpose of the free Angry Birds games is to sell angrier and more expensive birds; the purpose of the free United Airlines app is to get you to buy tickets on United Airlines; the purpose of the free Pandora app is to get you to subscribe to the full Pandora service. Folks will pay for more birds, better airline seats, and more music but still begrudge the 99 cents for an app designed by a professional clinician and software engineer to help a client improve. And that’s because we mix up the free app with the for-profit app, and forget the value of expertise and quality.

3. We see apps as “things” and not a piece of intellectual property.
Ask yourself why you want an app in the first place. Usually it’s because it offers you something that would take you a long time to develop yourself (if at all) and will in some way help your clients succeed. So why are you reluctant to pay someone for taking the time to do all that work for you? Is 99 cents really too much to ask for the hours and hours a developer has put into it?

The problem is that most folks look at apps the same way they look at cans of beans on a shelf; you find the ones you like, stick ‘em in your basket, and pay at the counter. But many apps – particularly those for therapy and education – have taken someone a long time to create. What you are buying is their years of experience in their field of expertise, their time designing the content, their cost to employ a programmer, and any royalties they in turn might be paying “behind the scenes” for things within the app [2].

4. Apple are not a charity and take their cut.
Folks who create apps know that despite the image that St. Stephen of Jobs carefully crafted to portray Apple as a caring, sharing, warm-and-fuzzy group of lovable kooks sticking it to “the Man,” they want 30% of everything that goes out via iTunes. Everything. If you write an app for an Apple device, you cannot sell it other than via iTunes – and that’ll cost you 30% of your selling price. Every 99 cent app that we begrudgingly pay for nets the developer 66 cents. Does anyone think to harass Apple because they get 33 cents for distributing? Nope, the developer gets the blame.

And how about that “freebie” thing? Well, Apple are kind enough to offer developers some free codes that they can use for promotion purposes, but after that, if the developer wants to give one away, they have to pay for their own app – and Apple still gets the 33 cents! That “free” app you are so adamantly demanding costs the developer (a) 66 cents in lost income and (b) 33 cents real money to Apple [3].

5. You have to sell millions of 99 cent apps to buy a boat.
Another basic rule of Economics is that to make a profit you can either sell millions of very cheap things at a small margin, or a few very expensive things at a large one. The Crapponomics assumption by consumers is that app developers make money by following the former route; millions of apps at 99 cents = sun-kissed beaches and mojitos in Hawaii.

But there are two underlying assumptions here that are inaccurate. The first is that the sort of apps being developed for therapy and education do not sell in millions. Not even close. The second is that there are not significant profits to be made from an app; simple math soon whittles down the margins. For a 99 cent app, Apple takes 33 cents, leaving 66 cents. Of that 66 cents, there’s usually at least two people to pay – author and developer – so that takes it to 33 cents each. Take out something for the IRS (like Apple, tax folks want their pound of flesh and you stand no chance of getting a “freebie” from them!), maybe a little for marketing, and that “dollar an app” profit has shrunk down smaller than a guy’s nuts on an Alaskan winter’s morning.

Think of the value, not the anchor
So do you still think paying 99 cents is too expensive? Or $1.99? Maybe even $4.99? Remember, that 99 cent app is supposed to make it easier for you to provide a service – for which you WILL be charging substantially more than 99 cents.

If a “life-changing” app costs $4.99, who in their right mind would quibble with that? Has the value of education and therapy reached the point where folks will pay more for a couple of pints at the bar than they will for their child’s future? I suppose that 60-inch LCD TV from  Best Buy is a “good investment” but the $99.99 for an AAC app isn’t? Where has our sense of value gone? I suppose paying Verizon Wireless $40.00 every  month for a data plan is normal for our wired life but hounding the developer of a $2.99 app  for a free copy balances that out.

We need to realize that when we buy an app we are not paying for the virtual equivalent of a can of beans but the skills, knowledge, and time of an experienced educator or clinician. Only then we will begin to stop the decline in the undervaluing of therapy and education as a whole.

Sometimes, there just isn’t an app for that.

Notes
[1] From Apple’s perspective, even the sale of the tablets isn’t where the big money resides; that’s coming from their greatest invention; iTunes. Although most folks would suggest that the iPod, iPhone, and iPad are Apple’s best inventions, it’s their delivery system that was their masterstroke. In order to get anything into your iDevice you need to download from iTunes, and Apple makes money on every download. Every app, book, song, movie, or video earns them cash, and that’s pure genius.

[2] Most app authors are in the true sense “authors” and not “writers.” They don’t actually write programming code for a device, and often have no idea about how code works. In a similar fashion, when Snooki claims to have “authored a book” she is being truthful; someone else actually “wrote” it based on Snooki’s ideas (whatever those may have been.) What this means is that the “99 cents” you pay  is now starting to get split many ways, and the author isn’t getting anything near 99 cents.

The average cost to develop and app has been estimated to be anywhere between $8000 and $200,000.  Here’s a good article called The Cost of Building an iPad App. Ideas for apps are cheap – we all have them – but software engineers are not, neither is your time. You might think that if you are designing an app in your “spare time” then it’s free, but the only reason you have “spare time” is that you’re already being paid for a job! The real test of the cost is to quit your real job and then go to the bank to see how much they will lend you to design an app.

[3] My standard disclaimer here is that I have no problem with any company making a profit. Apple developed the iTunes distribution system and have every right to recoup their development efforts by charging people to use the system. Although I may not want to say, “Greed is Good,” I’m OK with saying, “Making a profit is just fine.” My beef is more that for some reason, people seem to see Apple as the good guy and app developers as trying to gouge customers by charging for their apps. Folks seem happy to demand free 99 cent apps but don’t expect apple to give them a $700 iPad. Why is that? And Apple are the ones who force up app prices by asking for 30% of the selling price and only providing a limited number of free codes. So why don’t people rail on Apple about this? It seems that the richest company on the planet gets a “pass” but struggling app developers get the hassle. If Apple doesn’t give free $700 iPads, Verizon doesn’t offer free $40 monthly data plans, and Best Buy doesn’t let you walk off with a free 60-inch TV, why should an app seller give away a free 99 cent piece of software? Stop picking on the little guys!

Using the Pulse app to follow your favorite blogs

There was a time not so long ago when sitting down at the end of the day with a newspaper to catch up with world events was relatively normal. If you then watched a 30-minute new broadcast on TV, you were pretty much up to date.

In the 21st century, there are now more sources of information than you can shake the proverbial stick at, and there is no way to keep up with everything if you want to lead anything resembling a Life. So one way that technology can help you is to use a piece of software called an aggregator [1]. This is a single program that collects and displays in one location all the different sources of internet-based information that you might normally have to skip through to get you daily dose of news.

The one I use as my personal daily newspaper is Pulse, a multi-platform software that gathers up the latest information from a variety of media sources and pops them on-screen in an easy-to-view form.

Pulse

A great feature is that you can set up different pages (or tabs) for different sources, and this means it’s easy to have a simple BLOGS page just so you can follow your favorites. For those of you with iPads, here is a step-by-step guide to how to add a BLOGS page to Pulse.

1. Download Pulse for iPad/iPod.

2. When you first download Pulse, it takes you through setting up your first page and gives you lots of pre-chosen selections, such as Reuters News, BBC News, Lifehacker, GQ, and many, many others. Just choose a bunch so you can get up and running quickly and get a feel for the interface.

3. Once you are up and running, you can start adding your BLOGS tab by selecting the  or the  icon at the top left [2].

Choose Settings Button

4. Select the ADD A PAGE option from the screen that pops up.

Add new page

5. Now touch the button for BROWSE THE CATALOG.

Choose BROWSE CATALOG

6. From the pop-up window that appears, click on the Search Box.

Click the Search box

7. Now type in either the name of the blog you want to add or the actual blog address. HINT: If you type a blog address then add “/feed” that can work better than just the address alone.

Type in the blog

8. When you see the blog appear below the Search window, touch the blue + sign and it will change to a check mark.

Checked blog

9. Your chosen blog is now on your new page, which you can see if you look behind the “What’s New” window.

Blog is added

10. Click on the X to close the window and you will end up on your Home page but now have a new tab next to HOME.

Blog added

11. The final touch is to press and hold on the tab where is says “Page 2″ and yo can then edit it and type in BLOGS (or whatever). You now have a dedicated blog page where you can go ahead and add as many as you like.

Signing up with Pulse

If you want to go the whole hog and have your Pulse data available to you on any device, you should sign up for a Pulse account. This is incredibly painless as all they ask for is your e-mail and a password. That’s really it!

1. Click on the  button to get to the sign-up/login screen.

2. Choose Sign Up to create a new account with Pulse.

Sign up

Once you are signed up, you can now access Pulse from any platform for which there is software. Other than the iPad, I have tested it on a Droid 3, Samsung 7″ Tab, Samsung 10″ Tab, and the on-line version at the company’s pulse.me website [3]. Although there may be some difference in the interface, which is essentially because of scree size, it is pretty slick to be able to access all the same information regardless of platform.

And a final word: thanks to Speech Dudes follower @abbiem (Abbie Moran) for prompting us to produce this article! You can check out her new blog at Thinking about Language.

Notes
[1] The use of the word aggregator as a collector of information from various sites dates back to 1995. However, in the 16th century, it referred to “a collector or compiler of medical remedies.” It comes from post-classical Latin aggregator meaning “compiler,” which in turn derives from the Latin verb aggregare, “to cause to flock together, or join together.” The prefix ag- is really just a variant of the common prefix ad- meaning “toward or to,” and the root element is the Latin grex meaning “a flock.” Speechies will recognize the process whereby the /d/ at the end of the prefix /æd/ becomes a /g/ when followed by /grɛks/ – assimilation. Non-speechies might like to try saying “adgregate” and you’ll see why “aggregate” is much easier!

[2] At the time of writing, Pulse is moving to its 3.0 version. The cog icon is being changed to the “stack of papers” icon (it’s impossible to find the name of a picture if you don’t know what it is!) so if you have a pre-3.0 version you will see the cog.

[3]  It works on Windows XP with Firefox (v. 18.0.1), Opera (v. 12.14), Chrome (24.0.1312.57), but I had problems with Internet Explorer 8 (v. 8.0.6001). Internet Explorer 9 (v. 9.0.8112) on Vista works fine.

The Dudes Do ATIA 2013: Day 3 – Of Dining and Data

Today was a day of meetings. Fortunately, the first was at a delightful restaurant; the Thai Thani  on International Drive in Orlando. Being an Indian curry lover, I opted for the Curry Fried Rice with chicken, and wasn’t disappointed. One of the house specialities is a pineapple yellow fried rice curry with a choice of beef, chicken or pork, stir fried with raisins, cashews, and onions but I wanted something less fruity so I’ll save this special for another visit.

Thai Thani Orlando

Following two more meetings, I did the first of my two joint-presentations. I usually fly solo – then there’s only me to blame of things go wrong – but this year I tried sharing. And this one was on one of my favorite topics: automated data collection and analysis with AAC devices. The content was similar to the presentation I gave at ASHA 2012 and which has already been documented in The Dudes Do ASHA 2012: Day 4, so feel free to click and read that.

What wasn’t discussed in that older post was the way on which the word data itself can tell us something about language change over time. So try this quick test – and don’t spend too long thinking about the answer:

Which is these statements is correct:

(a) The data is good.

(b) The data are good.

If you answered (b), then you are in the company of the good people at the  Oxford English Dictionary (and that’s not bad company to be in) and the hearts of die-hard grammatical prescriptivists [1].

But if you answered (a), then you are not that different from the population of the English-speaking world as a whole because the is and the are seem to be in free variation! If you take a look at the Corpus of Historical American English, you’ll see that in terms of frequency of use, they don’t seem to differ that much since the 1930′s, and you can make a case, I suppose, for arguing that the is-form has edged ahead of the are-form.

Take a look at these charts that track use since 1830.

“The data is…”

Notice that “data is…” was being used at the turn of the century and peaked in the 1990′s. Compare that with the “data are…” instances:

The data are…

There are hardly any examples prior to the 1930′s and from the 1960′s onward, both is and are appear to be neck and neck in terms of usage.

So why does this happen? What is it that makes data such a tough word for folks to decide whether it should be used with is or are? The answer – or a t least part of it – is related to our understanding of whether a noun is a count noun or a mass noun.

For those saner readers who are less obsessed with language than this Dude, count nouns are – unsurprisingly! – those that can be counted. So dog, cat, shoe, table, boat, and cup, are all count nouns because we can talk about “three cups” or “five shoes” or “a room full of dogs.” With a count noun, you’re usually able to turn it into its plural form by adding an “s.”

On the other hand, a mass noun cannot be counted. Pork, education, furniture, and weather, cannot be used with a number or pluralized by adding an “s.” You don’t have “*three weathers” or “*a room full of furnitures.”

Data is one of those words that has become a mass noun, even though it was originally a count noun. And by “originally,” I mean going back to Latin, where the singular was datum and the plural was data. What often happens with foreign words that are imported into English is that we apply regular English rules to them. On that basis, it wouldn’t have been surprising to see datums – but it didn’t happen

What appears to have happened is that the word data has become a synonym for information, and folks feel that if “the information is good” sounds OK, then so does “the data is good.”

Incidentally, there is a way to turn a countable noun into a mass noun by using a rather gruesome linguistic device called a “universal grinder [2].” Suppose that in a frantic effort to catch a bird that has found its way into your house, you cat leaps up into the air and accidentally hits a rapidly rotating heavy fan. Saddened by its untimely demise, you might, through your tragic sobs, explain to someone over the phone that, “There is cat all over the room.” In this situation, a regular count noun has suddenly transformed into a mass noun.

Careful, Mr. Tibbles!

Equally, in certain circumstances, some mass nouns can take on the appearance of a count noun. Although water is typically a mass noun, you might be in a restaurant and remark  that, “there are four or five waters already on the table.” Needless to say, folks learning English have a bit of a struggle trying to learn the difference between them as the only rule seems to be that liquids and powders (amorphous items) tend to be mass nouns, and the rest are count.

The learning point from all this – and we’re trying to be recognized as an educational blog as well as providing entertainment – is that when we are evaluating someone’s ability to use language, it’s critical to be aware of the fact that sometimes the prescribed way of speaking may actually be in free variation with the popular way, and this is actually one of the ways in which language changes over time [3].

For the sake of completeness, the day ended with wine, pizza, beer (mass noun), and a cocktail before bed. Needless to say I fell asleep quickly.

Notes
[1] In the world of language mavens, there are constant arguments between prescriptivists, who take the line that there are “correct” ways to say things, and descriptivists, who say that so long as you can be understood, there ain’t no right and wrong.  Although I’m more often the prescriptivist boat, I’m happy to jump ship depending on my mood – and whether I want to just get into a bit of a row with someone just for the hell of it.

[2] The Universal Grinder is a linguistic thought experiment first written about by Francis Pelletier, who used it in a paper talking about the nature of count versus mass nouns. Pelletier didn’t use household pets and rotating blades as his examples but the Dudes feel more at home with Edgar Allan Poe as a role model than, say,  Noam Chomksy or Stephen Pinker.

Pelletier, F.  J. 1975. Non-Singular Reference: Some Preliminaries. Philosophia 5.

[3] A pretty comprehensive coverage of how and why languages change over time can be found in Larry Trask’s 2010 book Why Do Languages Change? For those who want the Dude notes, you can click on the following Dude Link to get the 38-page summary. 

The Dudes Do ATIA 2013: Day 2 – Of Schedules, Starbucks, and Support

Having a Master’s degree may qualify you to practice as a Speech Pathologist or Special Educator but it doesn’t prepare you for one of life’s trickiest of tasks: planning your schedule at a conference [1]. If you have a Ph.D. in Cryptography or 20 years of Project Management experience, you might just be able to get through two days before everything falls apart and you end up crying into your cocktail at the pool bar. Otherwise the best strategy is to walk into any room at random and when the session ends, follow a group into another. Given that 75% of all the sessions at a conference are going to contain information you’ll find useful, statistically speaking you’re likely to find the random approach very productive.

However, this year, the folks at ATIA  made it really easy to keep track of your time by offering a free mobile app for Android and Apple platforms. You could also use a web-based version but that has been available before – and it’s the app version that’s more useful while wandering around the conference hall. Unlike some folks who seem to be happy to carry around a bag the size of a small car, I’m more inclined to adopt a minimalist approach and try to carry as little as possible. This means my wallet (back right-hand pocket), trusty Droid 3 (front left-hand pocket), fountain pen of the day (front right-hand pocket), and bright red Quo Vadis notebook (carried). And this year, instead of stuffing sheets of paper with session information into my notebook, I downloaded the ATIA app to my Droid and all was well!

ATIA 2013 app feedback

The feedback on the app shows that most folks have it on an iPad, then iPhone, and finally an Android. It would have been nice if the feedback had offered a “No sir, I don’t like it” rather than the biased “Tell us what you like it on” but presumably the reasoning is that folks who don’t like it won’t use it. Still, maybe next time…

There was another amazing piece of Assistive Technology I stumbled across for the first time this year; the Starbucks vending machine! OK, so maybe you don’t count this as “assistive technology” but it certainly helped me.

Starbucks AT

All you do is pop a cup under the spigot, swipe a credit card or debit card, press a few buttons, and out pops a cup of Starbucks’ java without the need to talk to a human being. Or in the case of the Caribe Royale Conference Center, without the need to get into a car, head out of the hotel, take two right turns, drive about a mile, and pull up at the nearest actual Starbucks store.

The exhibit hall was busy during the morning. As might be expected, it was awash with tablets, all looking surprisingly the same as everyone and their dog joins in the frenzy to create the “next great AAC app” which looks just like the “last great AAC app.” And in an effort to adapt tablets to do the job of a dedicated AAC device, you can now attach an array of “peripherals” that are doing a great job of completely destroying the idea that having an iPad “makes you look like everyone else.” By the time you’ve bought a box to fit it in, speakers to make it louder, an interface box to add a switch, and a mounting kit to make it fit to a wheelchair, the thing looks more like a Rube Goldberg/Heath Robinson contraption than a sleek piece of technology.

In the new world order of consumer AAC, there is no “evaluation” along traditional lines. Rather than assess an individual to determine their needs and then select from a range of potential devices, the new consumer goes to Best Buy, asks the “expert” which iPad to buy, and then looks for anything on iTunes with 4 stars and downloads it. Problem solved.

But of course, it isn’t. Those of us who have been in AAC since the advent of the personal computer in the 80′s (and yes, there WERE devices with speech output before the iPad, whatever Apple may want you to believe) know that just dropping a device in someone’s lap – sometimes literally – does not solve the problem. In fact, simply providing a piece of technology and then walking away is called abdication, not intervention. There is a frightening tendency to think that “there’s an app for that” applies to everything, when there are many, many factors involved in helping someone succeed with an AAC system.

I’ll say again, because Apple zealots seem to disagree with me, that my beef is not with technology – and being in the technology and software vending game myself should be proof enough of the pudding – but with the lack of support given in the choosing, teaching, and long-term supporting of clients with communication needs, the solution to which is only partly aided by a device, whatever flavor that may be. I do not doubt the sincerity of anyone who is trying to help provide a way for folks with communication impairments to express themselves. But when there are over 150 apps labeled as “AAC” apps, how does anyone decide which to use? And more fundamentally, once a choice is made, how do you then support it – because I guarantee that no matter how much money your school district is spending on providing “communication solutions,” it’s spending a whole lot less on employing more staff to actually support it! If it took one teacher 2 hours a week to work with one kiddo with an AAC device, how many does it take to work with 5 kids with iPads? The answer appears to be “one, because that person has to work 5 times harder.”

OK, rant over. I’ve taken a deep breath and a shot of tequila [2] and am beginning to mellow. Tomorrow sees me doing the first of my presentations and having to go to several meetings. Thank goodness I have the ATIA conference app to remind me of when and where I need to be for my session!

Notes
[1] There is another conference-based task that has a similar level of complexity; splitting the bill at a restaurant. It’s inevitable that if you’re doing it right, at some stage during a conference you’ll have a rollicking, riotous good time with a bunch of new and old friends at some great restaurant or bar. Until the check arrives and you have to split the bill 14 ways. This not only causes your server to suffer from raised blood pressure (“Can we have separate checks – all 14 of us?”) but there’s no way anyone wants to simply divide the bill by 14 because Annette, Betty, and Cheryl shared two bottles of wine, but Erica only drank water, and Frank and Gerry were having a shot-drinking contest, while Harry insisted on a fresh lobster but Ian only had soup and a salad, and only Jan, Karen, and Larry had a desert…

The best way to address this one is to wait until ONE person goes to the restroom and then everyone else makes a run for it. This won’t, of course, work twice with the same group.

[2] If you read yesterday’s post and recognized this sentence as an example of syllepsis, congratulations! If you didn’t read yesterday’s post, go there right now and find out what syllepsis is

The Dudes Do ATIA 2013: Day 1 – Of Disclosures and Data

As if to prove that “the best-laid plans o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley,” one of the Dudes has had to cancel his trip to the ATIA conference here in Orlando, along with his presentation on eye gaze evaluation and implementation for children. Fortunately we’ll be able to make the notes available in a few days time, so check back or follow us on Twitter as @speechdudes.

The other Dudes – which would be me – is therefore left with the task of making sure folks get their dose of comments and observations inspired by the conference [1].

And these start with as a result of watching Jeff Smizek, the President and CEO of United Airlines, at the beginning of the flight to Orlando International. YOU may have to swipe your credit card to watch TV shows and movies on the tiny screen at the back of the chairs of a United Airlines Boeing 737-800, but Jeff Smizek’s little promo pieces are always free. In the latest, he enthuses over the new “control center” for the company based on one floor of the Willis Tower, former called the Sears Tower, in Chicago. From here, he extols, all of United’s operations are controlled and monitored in a state-of-the-art facility.

Boeing 737-800

So Jeff, if something were to happen to the Willis Tower facility, wouldn’t that be a “bad thing?” And wasn’t the last time the words “Willis” and “Tower” seen together in the movie Die Hard when Bruce Willis battled against terrorists who took over the Nakatomi Tower? Do you really want to announce to anyone who flies United anywhere in the world the address of the entire company’s nerve center? Call me paranoid, but couldn’t the marketing department find something else to promote – like plane safety, passenger-centric improvements, or a short piece on how airline food is made? Just sayin’, Jeff.

During flights, I take the opportunity to catch up on reading materials that have been piling up over the weeks, which on this trip included the latest copy of Bloomberg Businessweek. What caught my eye was an article on the growth in the Dubai economy. Now I know you’re thinking –  ”But Dude, what has this to do with Speech Pathology or Special Education?” Bear with me.

Consider the following paragraph taken from the article;

Rewa Zeinati, a freelance writer in Dubai, has noticed more business cards with photos of scantily clad women offering massages piling up on her car windscreen lately. “Sometimes I’m away for 30 minutes and come back to find a stack of them, ” says Zeinati. “I’ve definitely seen an increase this year.”

For those wanting to learn about experimental design, what we have here is a rather memorable example of the research dynamic duo of validity and reliability. You see, whenever you measure something (length, temperature, density, hair color, foot odor, number of toes etc., the two big questions you typically want answered are whether the test you apply actually measures what it is you are supposed to be measuring, and are these measures accurate.

Take, for example, the masochistic morning activity in which many of us indulge; checking our weight on the bathroom scales. Of late, the numbers I’ve been seeing having demonstrated – how shall I put it? – an “ascendant tendency.” My wife, on the other hand, would say, “You’re getting fat.”

My hope may be that there is a problem with the scales. Unfortunately, they seem to be reliable because they are consistent. By that I mean if I step off the scales and then back on, if they still show me at 170 lbs, they are consistent i.e. reliable. And if they appear to show my weight increasing slowly over time, and don’t suddenly drop to 130 lbs one day and up to 250 lbs on another, that’s more evidence of the reliability.

Bag of flour

The next line of defense is to argue that the scales are mis-calibrated and are adding an extra 20 lbs to my “real” weight. They are, in fact, lacking in validity – they are not really measuring what they are supposed to be measuring. My wife then grabs two bags of flour from the kitchen, each weighing 5 lbs, and drops them on the scales. The first one shows up as 5 lbs, the second as 10 lbs. She then has me stand on the scales holding the flour and tragically the scales show 180 lbs. Validity confirmed, I walk off in a huff and sign up for a WeightWatchers class [2].

In the case of the Dubai economy, the first assumption of validity is that massage services are dependent on how much money is sloshing around in the economy, and that if folks have more disposable income, they spend more on executive relief. So if there are more cards appearing offering such services, this is an indicator that the economy is on the rise [3].  On the other hand, we might want to argue the reverse; that as an economy declines, people seek temporary relief from the misery of privation by seeking solace in the company of a masseuse, so more cards equals shrinking economy. Readers of the classic Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy may recognize this as a variation on “Shoe Event Horizon” theory.

So it may be that the underlying assumption of the argument from the Businessweek article fails the validity test.

The other assumption is that the measuring rod – the number of cards on a windshield – is not accurate. Does each card measure X amount of “positive economy” or does the number of cards just fluctuate randomly over time? Without more longitudinal data – and looking at more cars than just Ms. Zeinati’s would also be critical.

So the card counting method may turn out to fail the validity test.

The Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning has a simple, readable overview of validity and reliability as part of an on-line  tutorial about measurement in the social sciences, so it’s worth taking a look.

Signing in for the conference was a piece of cake. In fact, it was possibly the easiest sign in I’ve had for a while. A couple of days prior to arriving, ATIA sent me a confirmation email that included a bar code. All I needed to do was walk up to the desk at the conference hall, open the email on my smartphone, and wave the bar code at a sensor. My badge was automatically printed out and the only human element needed was for a person to put the paper with my name on it into a plastic holder. The day cannot be far off when even that job will be replace by having me fold my own paper and drop it into a holder I pluck out of a large box.

Registration barcode

Dinner was at the Tropicale restaurant, one of the Caribe Royale’s on-site venues that I’ve eaten at many times, and I enjoyed a most excellent fire-roasted vegetable risotto served with chicken, asparagus tips, tomato fondue, and shaved Asiago. Delish! By the time dinner was over and beer had been consumed, my 5:00 am start ensured I was asleep within minutes of my head hitting the pillow.

Notes
[1] As we’ve mentioned before, our posts during conferences are not intended to be a comprehensive review of what’s happening but a series of reflections on what our conference experiences bring to mind. Rather than take 1000 words to outline the features and functions of an iPad app, we’re more likely to riff on the name of the app or mercilessly skewer one tiny aspect. If we say that H.L. Mencken is a role model, you’ll catch our drift.

[2] Astute – or anal – readers may want to raise the objection that we’re now making an assumption about the validity of using the bags of flour as a reference point. What if the makers of the flour have been unscrupulously shorting the contents by 0.2 lbs? Duly noted. It’s a fundamental issue in all measurement that whatever standards we use have to be valid – or assumed to be valid.

[3] I was tempted to use the phrase “…the economy and male anatomy are on the rise,” which is not only puerile play on the word rise but an example of something called syllepsis – a form of sentence where two or more parts of a sentence are yoked together by a common verb or noun, more often than not for humorous effect. Dorothy Parker allegedly once said, “It’s a small apartment. I’ve barely enough room to lay my hat and a few friends.” The sylleptic aspect comes from the dual meaning of the verb “to lay” and this type of humorous device is often called a pun – all be it a special version of a pun.

Small Object of Desire: The Monteverde Invincia Stylus fountain pen – and Keyword Vocabulary

Those who follow the Speech Dudes on Twitter (@speechdudes) may recall a mysterious tweet from December 28th, 2012, that referred to something called the Monteverde Invincia fountain pen.

And those who are regular readers of this blog may vaguely recall that one of the Dudes has a passion for pens that marks him out as being either very old-fashioned, slightly quirky, or perhaps requiring of medication. But the Invincia is a pen of such style, charm, and delicious darkness that I’m guessing at least one of you out there will be ponying up the $75 just to get one of these wonderful objects of desire in your hand. Literally.

Monteverde Invincia Stylus

But first, because this is, after all, a blog written by SLP’s for other SLP’s, educators, language lovers, and all moms and dads with a curious bent, let’s talk a little bit about vocabulary.

In the field of augmentative and alternative communication, where the Dudes earn their daily crusts, it’s common to talk about words as being either core or fringe. Actually, up until five years ago, it wasn’t always that common but the proliferation of apps for tablets has seen the words core and fringe become almost essential to the marketing blurb of any of these apps – whether or not it’s true. Just tossing the words out doesn’t make an app a good communication tool, nor does copying what other folks have done and dropping it into a few pages make it any better. No, app creators need to learn what the words really mean before using them as sales jargon [1].

But if you are serious about creating a word-based solution, you can use the following definitions to help you in your quest:

Core Word: A word with a high frequency-of-use value that is also what you might expect to see statistically when you compare it to a large reference corpus.

Fringe Word: A word with a low frequency-of-use value that is also what you might expect to see statistically when you compare it to a large reference corpus.

Keyword: A word that has a higher frequency-of-use than what you might statistically expect when you compare it to a large reference corpus.

You’ll notice that I have purposely defined these as statistical phenomena and not as actual words that may be referred to as “useful,” “necessary,” “essential,” “uncommon,” or any other such subjectively nuanced adjectives. You’ve hopefully also picked up on the notion that there needs to be a “reference corpus” of some sort. The best reference corpus I suggest is one I like to call “the English language” because that is the thing that we all need to use in order to communicate with one another. So using the Corpus of Contemporary American or the British National Corpus is fair game. And when it comes to core vocabulary, you’ll find that even if you look at the small vocabulary lists that have been collected in the AAC field from different age group across different situations, you’ll find the same words are common to all [2].

If you’re already working in AAC, you may not be familiar with the use of the term keyword but it’s taken from the world of Corpus Linguistics and I find it a very useful concept to apply. For example, in the world of education, when folks talk about “core words” in relation to Core Communication Standards, they are really talking about keywords; the word vertex is a “core word” in math but is a keyword from an AAC perspective.

Keywords are words which are significantly more frequent in a sample of text than would be expected, given their frequency in a large general reference corpus. (Stubbs, 2010) [3]

So, let’s go back to my encomium [4] on the Monteverde Invicia Stylus pen and see what we can learn about core words, fringe words, and keywords.

The first thing is that the world of pens and paper has specialized vocabulary – or more specifically uses some words in specialized ways. This would be keyword vocabulary within the domain of “Fine Writing.” Thus, the word nib is statistically a fringe word when compared to a general vocabulary but becomes a keyword within the context of discussing fountain pens. In essence, keywords are typically domain-specific items and a sub-set of fringe.

To give you a feel for what keywords you might find, I did a quick(ish) analysis based on a 10,000 word corpus created from a popular blog about fountain pens and their use. Using WordSmith 6 software, I created a word list based on the text from the blog, then used the KeyWord facility to determine the top 2o keywords in the sample i.e. those words that were being used statistically more than you might expect when compared with a standard reference (and in this case, my standard reference is the British National Corpus).

The following “league table” illustrated keyword vocabulary in the domain of Fine Writing.

Keywords “Fine Writing”

The words fountain and pen appear separately but when you look at the concordance data, the two actually appear typically as fountain pen, so I wouldn’t regard fountain itself a keyword – the keyword is the compound noun, fountain pen.  If I’d taken a few more minutes, I could have put the singular and plural forms together so we wouldn’t see separate entries for pen(s), ink(s), cartridge(s), converter(s), and color(s).

Knowing about such keyword vocabulary is, in fact, very useful. My enthusiasm for my new pen can be explained to you much more succinctly if I can use the keywords. For example, I recommend that if you want one of these pens, you are better off with the medium-sized nib because that will spread the ink out to facilitate clearly writing. Furthermore, since one of the great features of the pen is that it includes both a cartridge and a converter, knowing the words cartridge and converter is helpful! If I then explain that a converter is a small barrel that you can use to suck up ink from an ink bottle, you now know that by buying different inks you can choose which ink colors you’d like to have.

Vocabulary lesson aside, the pen is indeed a stylish addition to anyone’s fashion accessories. Its brushed metal, matt-black finish and fine ribbing give it a distinctive appearance with a hi-tech accent. Its darkness is reinforced by having a shiny black stainless-steel nib, which makes it look like the sort of pen Darth Vader might have used to sign the order authorizing the construction of the Death Star (“You don’t know the power of the Dark Side!”) or that Batman has somewhere on his utility belt (“Quick Robin, use the BatPen!”)

Pen showing internal converter

It writes smoothly and has the merest hint of a squeak as it glides across paper, which is not a bad thing in the world of fountain pens. It’s classed as a heavy pen (1.4 oz. or 4.0 grams) and so has a much more solid feel than some cheap, plastic ballpoint.

Even the nib is black!

To boost its hi-tech credentials even more, the cap is tipped with conductive rubber so it can be used with a capacitive touchscreen; in short, you can write on your favorite tablet device! I’ve tested it with the Galaxy Tab 7″ display, the 10″ display model (my favorite), the iPad 3 ,  a Motorola Droid 3, Microsoft Surface, and all have worked just fine.

Conductive rubber tip

There is a white version of the pen available but that doesn’t appeal to me. It’s the blackness that makes it sharp! And with a retail price of $95, it may sound steep to those who are new to the world of fountain pens. But you can get it from Amazon for $75, and other Internet sources are quoting $65, so there are deals to be had.

Long term, there are lots of different inks to choose from. Monteverde offer a range of inks but you should check out Glenn’s Pens where there is a good article on Fountain Pen Ink along with a dizzying array of brands and color options [5]. Another great resource is The Goulet Pen Company, where you’ll also find videos related to pens and paper.

Oh, and it you do buy the pen, drop us a note – then we know who we won’t be able to impress by whipping out our Invicia’s!

Notes
[1] And while we’re at it, there is a special place in the nine circles of Hell (possibly the 8th) reserved for anyone who claims their app is “intuitive,” “ground-breaking,” or, heaven forbid, “game changing.” If it takes me fifteen minutes and four or five keystrokes to find a word like already, and if there is no way for me to actually find it other than hitting key after key after key until  I stumble across it, you have NO right to talk about “intuitive,” “ground breaking,” or “game changing” – unless the “change” in question is to set AAC back 10 years by providing sub-par sops that do nothing more than provide a 10-minute solution that then requires hours and hours of fiddling to add all the stuff that was missing in the first place.

Just sayin’…

[2] If you want a list of a many vocabulary sources, there’s one available via this Dude Link! 

[3] Stubbs, M. (2010). Three concepts of keywords. In M. Bondi and M. Scott (Eds.) Keyness in Texts: Studies in Corpus Linguistics. John Benjamins Publishing: Philadelphia. Available via this Dude Link 

[4] Here’s one of those wonderful words that deserves to be taken out of the box now and again, dusted down, polished up, and tossed into a sentence just to brighten up an otherwise lexically turgid day. The OED defines encomium as “a high-flown expression of praise.” It come, via Latin, from the Greek enkomion (ἐγκώμιον) and ultimately eulogia (εὐλογία) or “eulogy,” which means “praise.” And yes, the logia element does mean “speaking” and is the same root as logos meaning “word.” Only the Dudes would bring you Classical Greek and make it interesting!

[5] My favorite ink at the moment is made by Diamine and called “Syrah,” a splendid dark-red that looks particularly fetching against the ivory paper of my Quo Vadis Havana journal. I use it in my Cross Torero Bourdeaux Croc, which is a broad-nibbed red colored pen that lives in my travel bag.

Reading List 2012: Only Just Made it!

I don’t make New Year resolutions on the basis that I have little resolve. Furthermore, I hate to set myself up for failure by promising something and then not succeeding – which I did last year by aspiring to write 500 words a day during the year and then ending up nowhere near that figure.

However, I have been tracking the books I read over the year and that’s been a good way of keeping me in the habit of reading. The tablet revolution might have given folks easy access to downloadable books, but I’m afraid games, videos, and social media account for most of what people do with all this wonderful technology. So just because it’s technologically feasible to get a book on demand, actually plowing through words on a page turns out to be hard work.

Reading is good

Which is why logging my reading habits has definitely helped. I didn’t quite hit the 60 mark as I did in 2011 but some of the books I read were rather heavy going and looooong!

So for the curious – and those looking for inspiration on what to read during the coming year – here’s the 2012 list in order of when I finished each one. And if you don’t have time to read a whole book (shame on you!) you can click on the Dude Link button to download a summary document.

1. Peter Cook: A Biography – Harry Thompson
    Bio of one of the UK’s most beloved “alternative” comedians. Dudes’ Review
2. The Greatest Show on Earth – Richard Dawkins
   Lucid account of the process of selection in evolution.
3. The Angel on the Roof – Russell Banks
   Collection of 31 stories from over thirty years of writing.
4. The Innovator’s Dilemma – Clayton Christenson 
   Innovation as both good and bad, and how to deal with it.
5. Forward the Foundation – Isaac Asimov
   Classic space opera sci-fi from a master.
6. The Origin of Speech – Peter MacNeilage 
   A neo-Darwinian account of the origin and evolution of speech.
7. Hatred at Home – Andrew Welsh-Huggins
   Home-grown terrorists in Ohio after 9/11.
8. The New York Trilogy – Paul Auster
   Three off-beat detective novels in one; postmodernist fiction.
9. A History of the English Language – Elly van Gelderen 
   Textbook with a companion web site.
10. An Aegean Prophecy – Jeffrey Siger
    Detective fiction set in Greece.
11. Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
    Psychologist looks at cognitive bias in the business world.
12. Ovid’s Metamorphoses – Charles Martin translation
    A new (2005) translation of Ovid’s indispensable classic.
13. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal – Jeanette Winterson
    Witty biography of growing up in the north of England – like I did!
14. A Canticle for Leibowitz – Walter M. Miller
    Award-winning classic post-apocalypse sci-fi story.
15. Capturing New Markets – Stephen Wunker 
    Adapting your business to evolving consumer demands.
16. Ghosts of Empire – Kwasi Kwarteng
    How British colonial policies have shaped the world.
17. Freedom for the Thought that We Hate – Anthony Lewis
    The First Amendment and its defenders.
18. Word Origins and How We Know Them – Anatoly Liberman
    Etymological detective work at its best.
19. “I” is an Other – James Geary 
    How metaphor is embedded in our thinking.
20. Triplanetary – E.E. “Doc” Smith
    Classic space opera from the 40′s.
21. The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack – Mark Hodder
    Steampunk in an alternative Victorian era.
22. You Are Not So Smart – David McRaney 
    Why being deluded and biased is simply human.
23. And a Bottle of Rum – Wayne Curtis 
    A history of rum and the rum trade.
24. IQ84 – Haruki Murakami
    A novel about a novel in a parallel world.
25. The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man – Mark Hodder
    More steampunk adventures in an alternative Victorian age.
26. Empire: What Ruling the World Did to the British – Jeremy Paxman 
    Three hundred years of Empire in Paxman’s unique style.
27. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman – Haruki Murakami
    Collection of stories written between 1981 and 2005.
28. Everything is Obvious – Duncan J. Watts 
    The nonsense of “intuitive” and “obvious” exposed.
29. Nothing: A Very Short Introduction – Frank Close 
    What’s left if you take matter away? Is “nothing” something?
30. The Kingdom by the Sea – Paul Theroux
    A three-month trip around the UK.
31. Pedro Paramo – Juan Rulfo
    Stunning magical realism set in Mexico. Dudes Review.
32. Why Does the World Exist? – Jim Holt 
    Philosophers ask why is there something rather than nothing.
33. My Family and Other Animals – Gerald Durrell
    Life with the Durrells on Corfu in the 1930′s.
34. Ready Player One – Ernest Cline
    21st century sci-fi romp with one foot firmly  in the 1980′s!
35. Daemon – Daniel Suarez
    Sentient internet threatens to take over the world.
36. Freedom (TM) – Daniel Suarez
    Follow up to best-selling Daemon.
37. Omnitopia – Diane Duane
    Companies fight to control virtual worlds.
38. The Flaw of Averages – Sam Savage
    Probability and management; don’t bet your shirt on anything!
39. American Gods – Neil Gaiman
    Award-winning fantasy about gods, myths, and America.
40. Ill Fares the Land – Tony Judt
    Contemporary materialism and selfishness examined.
41. 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in God – Guy Harrison
    Arguments against theism.
42. Incarnation – Daniel Easterman
    Political thriller with mystical overtones.
43. Kitchen Confidential – Anthony Bourdain
    Sex, drugs, rock and roll – and a kitchen!
44. Prospero in Hell – L. Jag Lamplighter
    Fantasy about Shakespeare’s Propero character’s family.
45. The Connected Company – Dave Gray 
    How modern companies have to become more connected.
46. Neverwhere – Neil Gaiman
    A fantasy set in two Londons – the real and a parallel one.
47. Choke – Chuck Palahniuk
    The life and near-deaths of a con artist.
48. If Houses Why Not Mouses? – Damien O’Brien
    Etymology and how historical sound change affects words.
49. Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World – Haruki Murakami
    Two plot lines become one in a surreal fantasy about memory.
50. All in a Word – Vivian Cook 
    Bits and bobs about words and phrases.
51. The Dreamthief’s Daughter – Michael Moorcock
    Nazis, magical swords, multiverses, and Moorcock as usual.
52. The Story of English in 100 Words – David Crystal 
    Why English is how it is through 100 words.
53. A Dash of Style – Noah Lukeman 
    How to improve your punctuation and, hence, your writing.
54. Mortality – Christopher Hitchens
    Hitchens’ final essays as he was dying of cancer.

I have two books currently on the go on my tablet, so 2013 is already underway! If anyone has any suggestions for books worth reading, let me know. And watch out for more  links with our posts.