MyVoice Android Manual



You can read the manual below at any time on your device by tapping the menu while on the main screen and selecting “Show Help”.

About


MyVoice is designed to assist speech impaired children and adults to communicate their needs and desires through the use of a virtual picture board.

How It Works


Using MyVoice your child can tap images that represent items they want or things they would like to do. These pictures aren't abstract icons, but actual things they see and use. This very simple concept has been highly effective in helping speech impaired, autistic, and children with diminished mental capacities communicate. When children can communicate their desires, tantrums related to communication frustration go down as they become more easily able to express themselves. The advantage of MyVoice over a paper picture board is it's flexibility, portability, and the fact that it will actually say a phrase or the item's name.

Getting Started


Getting started with MyVoice is easy. Simply create some categories, add some items and you're off and running. Categories are containers for things and activities. They can be things like “Things I want for snack time”, “Games I like to play” or any other grouping you find appropriate. Items are the things and activities that get filed under categories; for example “An Orange” may be under “Things I want for snack time”. Below you will find instructions on basic setup.

Creating A Category


  1. Tap the menu button on your device.
  2. Select “Add a category”.
  3. Type the phrase that will be spoken when the category is selected in the space provided. If you wish, you can also record a custom phrase that will be played in lieu of the typed message. You can tap “Play message” to sample what it will sound like, and adjust the spelling of any words to make them more understandable (often spelling words like they sound is easier for the computer to interpret instead of the correct spelling).
  4. Take a picture of something that is indicative of the category (you can also use a picture you've taken previously by selecting “Use Existing” after touching “Add Picture”). This can be something like a picture of the breakfast nook for “What I'd like for breakfast”.
  5. Once you are satisfied, hit “Save” or if you'd like to immediately add another category tap the menu button and select “Save & Add Category”. If you don't want to save the category, simply hit the back button on the device.

Adding Items To A Category


  1. Select the category you wish to add items to by tapping on it in the list of categories.
  2. Tap on the menu button on your device.
  3. Select “Add Item”
  4. Type the phrase you would like spoken when the item is selected. As with categories, you can record a custom phrase if you wish.
  5. Add a picture to the item in the same way we did for a category.
  6. Once satisfied, you can either hit save to return to the category selection screen or tap the menu button on the device and select “Save & Add Item” if you wish to add multiple items to the same category. As with categories, you can cancel at any time by hitting the back button.

Editing Or Deleting Categories And Items


  1. Select the item or category you wish to edit by tapping on it.
  2. Tap the menu button on your device.
  3. Select “Edit Category” or “Edit Item” depending on which you wish to do.
  4. Make any changes you'd like to make and hit “Save” or if you wish to delete the item or category hit “Delete”. Be aware that this is not reversible, be sure you want to delete the category or item before hitting “yes”.

FAQ


When I tap on a category or item there is no sound. What could be wrong?
Under settings->sound make sure that “Media volume” is not all the way down and that the master volume is not all the way down.
If you have no message typed into the message box, and no custom recording, no sound will be played. Make sure you have a message or custom recording. It's best to type a message even if you have a custom recording.

Sound from custom recordings starts playing a bit later than if the device is just reading the message.
This is a result of having to load the audio file from the SD card. You can speed this up a bit by using a faster SD card, but it will never be as fast as not using a custom recording because the text to read is already in memory and therefore can be started almost instantly.

I'm trying to record a long message but the “Stop recording” button keeps changing to the “Delete recording” button on it's own and my message gets interrupted in the middle.
Recorded audio is limited to 5 seconds for space and speed reasons.

I've done a lot of work to set up MyVoice. Is there a way to ensure the work isn't lost if I have to change devices?
Copy the entire MyVoice directory on the SD card to a safe location. If you ever need to move to a different device, simply place the MyVoice directory at the root of the SD card and start the app on the new device.