ELR-News

February 2013

Newsletter of ELR Software Pty Ltd

ABN 67 090 738 702
http://www.elr.com.au
news@elr.com.au

ELR Software produces a range of computer programs designed by speech pathologists for speech, language & literacy intervention. Our programs may be used interactively within therapy sessions, to increase efficiency in service delivery, and to improve access to the Internet for people with special needs. We are also available as consultants to clinicians and research projects in the fields of literacy and accessibility issues associated with the Internet.

The aim of this newsletter is to inform you of developments and changes to our major products eLr (Extra Language Resources), Build-a-Sentence, Word Meanings, Rude Readers and EIA (Enhancing Internet Access). We welcome the opportunity for feedback and questions, and will be pleased to consider including reader contributions and announcements.

This Newsletter (and previous editions) as well as a "print-ready" PDF version of the current edition is available online at www.elr.com.au/news. An email version is also sent monthly to members of our mailing list (See Subscribing/Unsubscribing).

In this issue -

  1. New eLr Materials
  2. eLr-Offline Beta iPad App
  3. Other Independent Developers
  4. Free Downloads
  5. ELR 2013 Calendar

  1. New eLr Materials

    This month we have opened a new section in "Using Language" called "Wh questions", using a new model called QuestionPics with 33 initial tasks. The aim of this section is to strengthen comprehension of "Wh" questions and the understanding of sentence structure.

    Subsections in "Wh questions" are organized to allow you to start at a very basic level (one element) and build up skills by the addition of further elements. The first subsection, "One element", includes 3 sets of tasks: "Who", "What doing" and "Where". "Two elements" covers "Who + What doing", and "Three elements" includes "Who + is + Where" and "Who + What doing + Where". Further subsections such as "What" and additional tasks with more examples will be added in the coming months. The "Help" for each task ([?] at top right corner of the screen) provides information about how to use the model and further tips to extend the use of these computer based tasks into everyday activities.

    QuestionPics incorporates the concept of "Colourful Semantics" which was developed by Alison Bryan (1997), a speech and language therapist in the UK. This approach uses colour-coding to highlight parts or elements of sentences. A subsequent evaluation of this approach (Bolderson et al 2011) with six 5 to 6 year old children found that therapy using this approach was effective, as scores on the Renfrew Action Picture Test (RAPT) and the Bus Story revealed that the child's grammar skills, mean sentence length and the ability to include a greater amount of information, all improved in therapy compared to the baseline measurements. They concluded that this approach warrants further investigation using a larger study.

    The elements targeted in QuestionPics to date are as follows:

    1. Who (agent) - orange
    2. What doing (verb) - yellow
    3. Where (location) - red

    As with all eLr materials, we welcome feedback about this new model. This may include ways that you are using the model, suggestions for improvements and scenarios that can be considered.

    References:

  2. Updated eLr-Offline Beta iPad App

    We have almost completed development and testing of the iPad App version of eLr-Offline and have had a great response to our request for Beta testers. Thanks very much for your interest and feedback so far. We can still add a few more people, but numbers are limited. A new release for "February 2013" (build 1.10) is now available.

    All the content of this App is fully functional and matches that on the website and in the standard Windows version of eLr-Offline. As you would expect, once installed it doesn't need an internet connection to operate and provides immediate access to the now more than 11,700 eLr tasks.

    If you are a current eLr subscriber and would like to participate in this free process, please email us from your iPad to support@elr.com.au. We'll reply with an invitation to join the group of Beta testers and instructions about how to install the App.

    We've been using a service called "Testflight" to signup testers and deliver the App to their iPad. It's worked without issue for most people, but for a few there have been complications and even failure in the installation process. Please contact us if you've had difficulties which have prevented you getting eLr-Offline Beta successfully onto your iPad. We now have an alternative mechanism which although a bit less sophisticated, is perhaps more reliable.

  3. Other Independent Developers

    As an occasional feature of this Newsletter, we include simple, unpaid announcements of products developed by other small, independent developers, who, like ourselves, are practising clinicians who have put their ideas and experience into resource materials for general distribution. Links and brief information about these sites may be found at www.elr.com.au/links/developers.htm. To date we have listed -

    If you would like your materials listed on this page (at no charge), please contact us.

  4. Free Downloads

    ELR has a number of free or evaluation files available for downloading directly from our website. Please see www.elr.com.au/downloads.htm for specific details. For other supporting materials and documents available for free download, please see www.elr.com.au/support.htm.


  5. ELR 2013 Calendar

    ELR Software is now able to offer eLr support and short tutorials over the web. We can provide this sort of support to individuals, or to groups who would like to have an overview of eLr. Please contact us for details.



Subscribing/Unsubscribing to this Newsletter

You are receiving ELR-News because you are an eLr subscriber, or have expressed an interest in either eLr, Rude Readers, Word Meanings, Build-a-Sentence or EIA. To subscribe or unsubscribe, send an e-mail with details to news@elr.com.au

Copyright ©2013 ELR Software Pty Ltd

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