pasco is designed to work well with an external headphone or speaker so the person communicating can only hear the cue rather than others in their environment hearing the cue constantly. Please note. This feature is only available on iOS at present. To do this plug in a wired headphone or speaker to the device (it does not work on bluetooth speakers yet!). When you do this all sound, by default, will now be directed to your headphones. To redirect the Main voice to the speaker of the iPhone/iPad you need to check the box to redirect the output in the Config->Speech.
If someone is operating a single button and has learnt the basics of simple automatic scanning then they can use pasco to make their needs known. A video explaining scanning can be found here. To configure pasco for this within the Config Screen change it to "Automatic-Scanning" Under "Switch Access". There are some options available when you do this.
Loops. This is how many times the scan will go through each level of the tree if no item is selected. It can be useful if the indvidual wants to listen first and then select. However if you are using it for this try and look at the "First time run" Option
Delay at first item. Sometimes its difficult for people who use auto-scanning to select start the scan AND select the first item. This delay time adds an extra delay to the very first item at each level of the vocabulary
Auto-scanning delay. This is the time it takes to move from one item to the next. Some people call this the "Scan Time".
There are some other settings too which are not specific to single switch scanning:
Switch key to select items Many switch boxes (the piece of equipment that connects your switch to the computer) use space or enter as the emulated key press. Which emulated key press are you using? This will be the key that selects items
First Time Run (Cue Voice) It can be useful to have a cue for the first time the scan goes through each level of your vocabulary. This may go a lot faster than the regular scan rate. This is called the First time Run. By turning this on you can change the rate and a different voice if required
Ignore second hits(ms) If the user has difficulty pressing the switch once - or for example tremors on a switch - increasing this time can help. It ignores second hits of the switch if they are within the time period selected
Ignore key presses under n ms This setting tells the app to ignore short switch presses. You can alter this time as you need to.
One last configuration that is very helpful for automatic scanning is the "Back option for all branches" Under Helpers. This puts a "Back" action at the bottom of each level of the vocabulary allowing someone with one switch to go back a branch if they make a mistake.
Some people may use two switches. One switch will move through the items - with a second switch selecting them. This is called Two-switch or Manual scanning. To configure pasco for this within the Config Screen change it to "Manual" Under "Switch Access". There are some options available when you do this.
Switch key to select items Many switch boxes (the piece of equipment that connects your switch to the computer) use space or enter as the emulated key press. Which emulated key press are you using? This will be the key that selects items.
**Move with the other switch (Step scanning)**You will need to select this if you are using two switch scanning. What does this button do? Lets imagine you select "Space" as your selection key. Checking this box will make "Enter" your move key. Equally if you have "Enter" as your selection key it makes "Space" the move key.
First Time Run (Cue Voice) It can be useful to have a cue for the first time the scan goes through each level of your vocabulary. This may go a lot faster than the regular scan rate. This is called the First time Run. By turning this on you can change the rate and a different voice if required
Ignore second hits(ms) If the user has difficulty pressing the switch once - or for example tremors on a switch - increasing this time can help. It ignores second hits of the switch if they are within the time period selected
Ignore key presses under n ms This setting tells the app to ignore short switch presses. You can alter this time as you need to.
One last configuration that is very helpful for manual scanning is the "Back option for all branches" Under Helpers. This puts a "Back" action at the bottom of each level of the vocabulary allowing someone with one switch to go back a branch if they make a mistake. NB: If someone can access a third switch you can set this switch to "A" or "Back arrow".
Some individuals can operate one finger or thumb with some dexterity once positioned in the correct place so that they, for example, can control the navigation arrows of a remote control. Pasco has a built in navigation aid that, although designed for a communication partner to use can be useful for the individual. To turn this on Select the "On" option of the "On-screen navigation".
The navigation arrow allows you to go up,down, left and right through the language of your vocabulary
Once on you can press and hold on the 4 way arrow to move the navigation tool around the screen to where you need it - and resize it. To resize it press and hold on the middle of the arrow then grab the edge of the dotted line surrounding it to resize the tool.
Some individuals can operate an external number pad (like this) - where one or more fingers can operate the arrow keys. This can be placed in the correct place - and mounted if required.
To use this, pair with your device (iPhone, iPad or other device using pasco). Make sure your numlock setting is on so you can use the arrow keys. The arrows allows you to go up,down, left and right through the language of your vocabulary
Some people may understand one language but need to communicate to others in a different language. Pasco allows you to do this by changing the voice of the cue (the voice that the pasco user would hear) - and the main voice (the voice that others would hear). There are two ways you can achieve this with pasco
Using the in-built Text to speech engine - and changing the language
Recording your own cue/main voice audio recordings
pasco has some simple and advanced editing available. We will first look at the simple - within app way of editing. To Edit within the app navigate to the tree or part of the tree you want to access (hint: enabling the navigation tool helps this) and then hit the Top right Edit icon (looks a little like a pencil and pad). Once in this mode tap on the item you want to edit. A white box will appear with small markers. If you want to edit the text (the label) - just tap in the white area and with the on-screen keyboard edit the text as you wish.
If you want to add a new item above or below this item - simply hit the plus symbol either above or below the item
If you want to change the recorded cue or main recording - you can do this by tapping on the spanner symbol next to the item you want to change. Then in the next window select which the recording is for (Main, Cue or Both) and press and hold the red "Record" button. Release the button when you are finished recording.
In the config it's possible to import and export your own language tree. This is simply a text file. There are two ways you can make this:
Within MindNode. A mindmap editor. Create your list then export to Markdown and import this file
Within a plain text editor (e.g. Notepad). Simply indent lines using the tab key under each heading. You can look at an example here
Copy and paste the file (either the markdown file - or the indented text file) into the Tree in the Config.
Mindnode is a Mind Map editor. It works rather beautifully with pasco to develop complex deep language trees. Pasco supports its "Markdown" export file format. So for example a tree with two roots - may look like this:
and pasting the exported markdown file format into pasco we get:
So pasco is unique because we have thought about early switch scanners - and seasoned switch scanners from the start of development. The problem for many switch scanning users is they either learn to use a easy approach within a specific app - but usually the user is then stuck within the app; or they have to use the built-in iOS switch scanning which is often inefficient when using it for communication because you have to scan through screen elements and actions that you don't need access to.
In pasco you can either use our built-in scanning methods - or use the ios scanning method. How? Well to use the iOS scanning method we recommend setting up a switch recipe which "hold at point". With one switch - create the recipe by tapping at the point of the right arrow of the navigation menu. Put a timeout on the recipe - and this will allow the user to go back to normal scanning if they don't press anything after a while.
warning This is far from perfect To make this easier Apple really need to allow a long-press to toggle turning a defined recipe on or off. But you can't do that yet. Want it? :::
Before you edit the raw language file you must remember some rules!
Use a Plain Text editor. Don't use Microsoft Word, Wordpad, Apple Pages or similar. When you have a plain text editor - no fancy formatting like bolding text or underlining is possible. Which is great for pasco - as it will mess with its head!. The only formatting you can use is a tab to indent the text (or use spaces). For example:
Chat
Social Chat
Alright Mate
How's things?
Polite Chat
Good morning
How are you?
Anything I can do for you today
Care Messages
Body Parts
Medical equipment
Chair
Bed
I'll spell itTabs and Spaces don't mix! Each line can start with either spaces OR tabs. Not both
So you cannot do this:
[space-space]I'll spell iti.e. here the file has started with a space - but then given a tab. The next line has two spaces. In many text editors this is difficult to see - but effectively we have messed up pasco. Does it look at spaces or tabs?
Cues can be put in brackets
for example if you wanted the person to be able to say "Hello World" (Main Voice) but a cue to be "Hello" we could do this:
Hello World(hello)Unless you have a fancy iPad Pro - or are using an external keyboard you cant use tabs on the iPad - so you will have to use spaces instead. Where you would use one tab to indent - do the same with a space. Keep the number of spaces the same so your file looks nice and neat.
