New & Improved Avaz 2.0

1. Track your therapy sessions

Therapists suggested that they would love to have the app track their therapy sessions automatically in the background. This would save them time from taking notes during or after therapy, and allows them to concentrate on their therapy instead. In this version, you can automatically track the users’ activities during a therapy session, by using the Track Session option under Settings. When you end the session, you get an option to email the session log. The session log maintains a log of all sentences spoken out, changes made to settings, and changes made to the vocabulary (add or edit).

2. Backup & Restore

Therapists voiced their concern that after customizing the vocabulary in a particular device, they were unable to backup the content, and would lose the content if they change the device. We now offer the option to backup the existing Avaz data onto your iPad using Create new backup from the Backup & Restore menu in Settings. To restore backed up content, select from the list of backups displayed. This restores the state of the app at the time of backup. The backups can be deleted by connecting to iTunes.

3. Use Dropbox to synchronize your Avaz content over multiple iPads

With this version it is really simple to synchronize your Avaz content over multiple devices. You can do this by linking your Dropbox account in Avaz. Use the Link to Dropbox option (under Settings -> Backup & Restore) to sign-in to Dropbox and then create backups of your Avaz content. Use the same Dropbox account on the other iPads to synchronize the content.

4. Share messages

Avaz now empowers the user to communicate with family and friends through the social media. An Avaz user can share messages (that Avaz speaks) through Facebook, Twitter or Email. Set the medium of communication using Share on Social media option in Settings. You can share the message after you speak it out from the message box. A child can say “hello” to his friends through email or wish “Happy birthday” to his grandmother on Facebook!

5. Color coded vocabulary

The vocabulary is now color-coded (optional) and grouped linguistically, to facilitate language development. You can also individually change the colors of any of the images using the Edit image option.

6. Enhanced vocabulary

Parents and therapists were keen to have vocabulary that serves a wider range of children, and offers increased opportunities for communication. The Avaz vocabulary has now been enhanced by an additional 2000+ words. You can choose from more than 80 topics of conversation under My Topics – e.g. “Go shopping”, “Play basketball”, “Pet care” etc. Each of these categories contains the relevant context words, supported by appropriate core words to facilitate sentence formation. These topics are grouped under the relevant settings or environment where they are likely to be used – e.g. At home, Outdoor etc.

7. Add your own voice to messages

Some parents and therapists wished to personalize the spoken messages by recording their own voice. You can now add your voice to the message using the Record button when you edit the message. This is also useful for correcting mis-pronounced words or words having different audio messages.

8. Integrated Picture and Keyboard modes

Avaz 2.0 comes with the Picture and Keyboard modes integrated, and you can now switch between them seamlessly. While making sentences in the picture mode, switch to keyboard mode for spelling words that are not present in the Picture mode, and return to the picture mode to continue.
E.g. My name is “Emily”. Type “Emily” using the keyboard mode and switch back to picture mode to continue the message.

9. Page Up & Page Down arrows

Avaz is now more accessible for children having fine motor difficulties. In Settings, you can set Scroll by Swiping to OFF, to use Page Up and Page Down keys, instead of the swiping action on the screen.

10. Rearrange on disable

Implementing motor planning strategies require usage of consistent layouts and position of the images. If you wish to use this for the child, you can switch ON the Rearrange on Disable option under Settings. When you disable an item, it will not rearrange the other items to fill the gap, and retains their position on the screen.

11. Instant Search

While working on a dictionary, therapists often get frustrated, trying to search for a specific word in a collection of more than 5000 words. We now offer you a great search option – you can search for any word in the vocabulary, by typing the word in the Search bar. The search results show the list of all occurrences of the word in the vocabulary. Choose any result to instantly go to the page you want.

12. Switch between Quick responses and Core words

Therapists felt it is always handy to have a instant access to the list of core words from any page. Core Words is now a button that offers one touch access to the list of core words from any page. The button on the right navigation panel can be configured either as a short cut to Quick or Core Words, depending on the child’s usage.

13. Use the copy feature to replicate content

You can now replicate any content (message or category) by using the copy feature.