App to Help People With Autism and Aphasia Communicate

There's a new iPhone App (soon to be Andriod, too) called MyVoice, which is specifically designed to help people with speech and communication disabilities (such as those with Autism or Aphasia, which inhibits their ability to speak, but not to understand or want to communicate). This short video is a great intro to how the app works. Basically, it allows people to save sentences, information, etc, into the app, so they can just select the information they want to share, and the app will read it out to whoever they are communicating with. It can also create words, phrases, conversations for you based on your location or based on an interest you share.

My mom works with Autistic young adults, and she specifically focuses on using technology to help them advocate for themselves and their needs. Usually, these kinds of communication systems are very expensive, hard to get, and not covered by insurance. This app is free (with some paid upgrades/expansions) so it's possible that this will help to make communication easier, and more accessible, to the people who need it. I thought this was a really interesting way to use mobile technology to make communicating with others easier for people with Autism and Aphasia.